MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS 


OLD  TALES  AND  SUPERSTITIONS  INTERPRETED 
BY  COMPARATIVE  MYTHOLOGY 


BY 

JOHN  FISKE 


La  mythologie,  cette  science  toute  nouvelle,  qui  nous  fait  suivre  les 
croyances  de  nos  p^res,  depuis  le  berceau  du  monde  jusqu'aux  supersd* 
tioQS  de  nos  campagnes.  —  Edmono  Schbrbr 


ELEVENTH  EDITION 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 
(Ck  Jl!itori6iDe  Cambridge 
1888 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1872, 
BY  JAMES  R.   OSGOOD  &  CO., 
in  the  Office  of  the  librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington^ 


10 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND, 

WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS, 

IN  REMEMBRANCE  OF  PLEASANT  AUTUMN  EVENINGS  SPENT  AMONG 
WEREWOLVES  AND  TROLLS  AND  NIXIES, 

THIS  BECOBD  OF  OUE  ADYENIUBES. 


PREFACE. 


IN  publishing  this  somewhat  rambling  and  unsystem- 
atic series  of  papers,  in  which  I  have  endeavoured  to 
touch  briefly  upon  a  great  many  of  the  most  important 
points  in  the  study  of  mythology,  I  think  it  right  to  ob- 
serve that,  in  order  to  avoid  confusing  the  reader  with 
intricate  discussions,  I  have  sometimes  cut  the  matter 
short,  expressing  myself  with  dogmatic  definiteness  where 
a  sceptical  vagueness  might  perhaps  have  seemed  more  be- 
coming. In  treating  of  popular  legends  and  superstitions, 
the  paths  of  inquiry  are  circuitous  enough,  and  seldom 
can  we  reach  a  satisfactory  conclusion  until  we  have 
travelled  all  the  way  around  Robin  Hood's  barn  and  back 
again.  I  am  sure  that  the  reader  would  not  have  thanked 
me  for  obstructing  these  crooked  lanes  with  the  thorns 
and  brambles  of  philological  and  antiquarian  discussion, 
to  such  an  extent  as  perhaps  to  make  him  despair  of  ever 
reaching  the  high  road.  I  have  not  attempted  to  review, 
otherwise  than  incidentally,  the  works  of  Grimm,  Muller, 
Kuhn,  Brdal,  Dasent,  and  Tylor ;  nor  can  I  pretend  to 
have  added  anything  of  consequence,  save  now  and  then 
some  bit  of  explanatory  comment,  to  the  results  obtained 
by  the  labour  of  these  scholars ;  but  it  has  rather  been  my 


vi 


PREFACE. 


aim  to  present  these  results  in  such  a  way  as  to  awaken 
general  interest  in  them.  And  accordingly,  in  dealing 
with  a  subject  which  depends  upon  philology  almost  as 
much  as  astronomy  depends  upon  mathematics,  I  have 
omitted  philological  considerations  wherever  it  has  been 
possible  to  do  so.  Nevertheless,  I  believe  that  nothing 
has  been  advanced  as  established  which  is  not  now  gen- 
erally admitted  by  scholars,  and  that  nothing  has  been 
advanced  as  probable  for  which  due  evidence  cannot  be 
produced.  Yet  among  many  points  which  are  proved, 
and  many  others  which  are  probable,  there  must  always 
remain  many  other  facts  of  which  we  cannot  feel  sure 
that  our  own  explanation  is  the  true  one;  and  the 
student  who  endeavours  to  fathom  the  primitive  thoughts 
of  mankind,  as  enshrined  in  mythology,  will  do  well  to 
bear  in  mind  the  modest  words  of  Jacob  Grimm,  —  liim- 
self  the  greatest  scholar  and  thinker  who  has  ever  dealt 
with  this  class  of  subjects,  —  "I  shall  indeed  interpret  all. 
that  I  can,  but  I  cannot  interpret  all  that  I  should  like." 


Petersham,  September  6,  1872. 


CONTENTS. 

Pam 

I.  The  Origins  of  Folk-Lore   1 

II.  The  Descent  of  Fire   37 

III.  Werewolves  and  Swan-Maidens      ....  69 

TV.  Light  and  Darkness   104 

V.  Myths  of  the  Barbario  World      ....  141 

VI.  JuvENTus  Mundi   174 

VII.  The  Primeval  Ghost- World   209 

Note   241 

Index   243 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


I. 

THE  OEIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 

FEW  mediaeval  heroes  are  so  widely  known  as  WiUian 
Tell.  His  exploits  have  been  celebrated  by  one  of 
the  greatest  poets  and  one  of  the  most  popular  musicians 
of  modern  times.  They  are  doubtless  familiar  to  many 
who  have  never  heard  of  Stauffacher  or  Winkelried,  who 
are  quite  ignorant  of  the  prowess  of  Eoland,  and  to  whom 
Arthur  and  Lancelot,  nay,  even  Charlemagne,  are  but 
empty  names. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  his  vast  reputation,  it  is  very 
likely  that  no  such  person  as  William  Tell  ever  existed, 
and  it  is  certain  that  the  story  of  his  shooting  the  apple 
from  his  son's  head  has  no  historical  value  whatever. 
In  spite  of  the  wrath  of  unlearned  but  patriotic  Swiss, 
especially  of  those  of  the  cicerone  class,  this  conclusion 
is  forced  upon  us  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  study  the 
legend  in  accordance  with  the  canons  of  modern  histori- 
cal criticism.  It  is  useless  to  point  to  Tell's  lime-tree, 
standing  to-day  in  the  centre  of  the  market-place  at 
Altdorf,  or  to  quote  for  our  confusion  his  crossbow  pre- 
served in  the  arsenal  at  Zurich,  as  unimpeachable  wit- 
nesses to  the  truth  of  the  story.  It  is  in  vain  that  we 
are  told, "  The  bricks  are  alive  to  this  day  to  testify  to  it ; 
1  ▲ 


2 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


therefore,  deny  it  not."  These  proofs  are  not  more  valid 
than  the  handkerchief  of  St.  Veronica,  or  the  fragments 
of  the  true  cross.  For  if  relics  are  to  be  received  as 
evidence,  we  must  needs  admit  the  truth  of  every  miracle 
narrated  by  the  BoUandists. 

The  earliest  work  which  makes  any  allusion  to  the 
adventures  of  William  Tell  is  the  chronicle  of  the 
younger  Melchior  Kuss,  written  in  1482.  As  the  shoot- 
ing of  the  apple  was  supposed  to  have  taken  place  in 
1296,  this  leaves  an  interval  of  one  hundred  and  eighty- 
six  years,  during  which  neither  a  Tell,  nor  a  William, 
nor  the  apple,  nor  the  cruelty  of  Gessler,  received  any 
mention.  It  may  also  be  observed,  parenthetically,  that 
the  charters  of  Ktissenach,  when  examined,  show  that 
no  man  by  the  name  of  Gessler  ever  ruled  there.  The 
chroniclers  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Faber  and  Hammer- 
lin,  who  minutely  describe  the  tyrannical  acts  by  which 
the  Duke  of  Austria  goaded  the  Swiss  to  rebellion,  do 
not  once  mention  Tell's  name,  or  betray  the  slightest 
acquaintance  with  his  exploits  or  with  his  existence.  In 
the  Zurich  chronicle  of  1479  he  is  not  alluded  to.  But 
we  have  still  better  negative  evidence.  John  of  Winter- 
thiir,  one  of  the  best  chroniclers  of  the  Middle  Ages,  was 
living  at  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Morgarten  (1315),  at 
which  his  father  was  present.  He  tells  us  how,  on  the 
evening  of  that  dreadful  day,  he  saw  Duke  Leopold  him- 
self in  his  flight  from  the  fatal  field,  half  dead  with  fear. 
He  describes,  with  the  loving  minuteness  of  a  contem- 
porary, all  the  incidents  of  the  Swiss  revolution,  but 
nowhere  does  he  say  a  word  about  William  TeU.  This 
is  sufficiently  conclusive.  These  mediaeval  chroniclers, 
who  never  failed  to  go  out  of  their  way  after  a  bit  of  the 
epigrammatic  and  marvellous,  who  thought  far  more  of  a 
pointed  story  than  of  historical  credibility,  would  never 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


3 


have  kept  silent  about  the  adventures  of  Tell,  if  they  had 
known  anything  about  them. 

After  this,  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  that  no  two 
authors  who  describe  the  deeds  of  WiUiam  Tell  agree  in 
the  details  of  topography  and  chronology.  Such  discrep- 
ancies never  fail  to  confront  us  when  we  leave  the  solid 
ground  of  history  and  begin  to  deal  with  floating  legends. 
Yet,  if  the  story  be  not  historical,  what  could  have  been 
its  origin  ?  To  answer  this  question  we  must  consider- 
ably expand  the  discussion. 

The  first  author  of  any  celebrity  who  doubted  the 
story  of  William  Tell  was  Guillimann,  in  his  work  on 
Swiss  Antiquities,  published  in  1598.  He  calls  the  story 
a  pure  fable,  but,  nevertheless,  eating  his  words,  concludes 
by  proclaiming  his  belief  in  it,  because  the  tale  is  so  pop- 
ular! Undoubtedly  he  acted  a  wise  part;  for,  in  1760, 
as  we  are  told,  Uriel  Freudenberger  was  condemned  by 
the  canton  of  Uri  to  be  burnt  alive,  for  publishing  his 
opinion  that  the  legend  of  Tell  had  a  Danish  origin.* 

The  bold  heretic  was  substantially  right,  however,  like 
so  many  other  heretics,  earlier  and  later.  The  Danish 
account  of  Tell  is  given  as  follows,  by  Saxo  Grammat- 
icus :  — 

"  A  certain  Palnatoki,  for  some  time  among  King  Har- 
old's body-guard,  had  made  his  bravery  odious  to  very 
many  of  his  fellow-soldiers  by  the  zeal  with  which  he 
surpassed  them  in  the  discharge  of  his  duty.  This  man 
once,  when  talking  tipsily  over  his  cups,  had  boasted  that 
he  was  so  skilled  an  archer  that  he  could  hit  the  smallest 
apple  placed  a  long  way  off  on  a  wand  at  the  first  shot ; 
which  talk,  caught  up  at  first  by  the  ears  of  backbiters, 
soon  came  to  the  hearing  of  the  king.  Now,  mark  how 
the  wickedness  of  the  king  turned  the  confidence  of  the 

•  See  Delepierre,  Historical  Difficulties,  p.  75. 


4 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


sire  to  the  peril  of  the  son,  by  commanding  that  this 
dearest  pledge  of  his  Hfe  should  be  placed  instead  of  the 
wand,  with  a  threat  that,  unless  the  author  of  this  prom- 
ise could  strike  off  the  apple  at  the  first  flight  of  the 
arrow,  he  should  pay  the  penalty  of  his  empty  boasting 
by  the  loss  of  his  head.  The  king's  command  forced  the 
soldier  to  perform  more  than  he  had  promised,  and  what 
he  had  said,  reported  by  the  tongues  of  slanderers,  bound 
him  to  accomplish  what  he  had  not  said.  Yet  did  not 
his  sterling  courage,  though  caught  in  the  snare  of  slan- 
der, suffer  him  to  lay  aside  his  firmness  of  heart ;  nay,  he 
accepted  the  trial  the  more  readily  because  it  was  hard. 
So  Palnatoki  warned  the  boy  urgently  when  he  took  his 
stand  to  await  the  coming  of  the  hurtling  arrow  with 
ealm  ears  and  unbent  head,  lest,  by  a  slight  turn  of  his 
body,  he  should  defeat  the  practised  skill  of  the  bowman ; 
and,  taking  further  counsel  to  prevent  his  fear,  he  turned 
away  his  face,  lest  he  should  be  scared  at  the  sight  of  the 
weapon.  Then,  taking  three  arrows  from  the  quiver,  he 
struck  the  mark  given  him  with  the  first  he  fitted  to  the 

string  But  Palnatoki,  when  asked  by  the  king  why 

he  had  taken  more  arrows  from  the  quiver,  when  it  had 
been  settled  that  he  should  only  try  the  fortune  of  the 
bow  once,  made  answer,  '  That  I  might  avenge  on  thee 
the  swerving  of  the  first  by  the  points  of  the  rest,  lest 
perchance  my  innocence  might  have  been  punished,  while 
your  violence  escaped  scot-free.' "  * 

This  ruthless  king  is  none  other  than  the  famous  Har- 
old Blue-tooth,  and  the  occurrence  is  placed  by  Saxo  in 
the  year  950.  But  the  story  appears  not  only  in  Den- 
mark, but  in  England,  in  Norway,  in  Finland  and  Eussia, 
and  in  Persia,  and  there  is  some  reason  for  supposing  that 
it  was  known  in  India.    In  i^orway  we  have  the  adven- 

*  Saxo  Grammaticus,  Bk.  X.  p.  166,  ed.  Frankf.  1576. 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


5 


tures  of  Pansa  the  Splay-footed,  and  of  Hemingr,  a 
vassal  of  Harold  Hardrada,  who  invaded  England  in 
1066.  In  Iceland  there  is  the  kindred  legend  of  Egil, 
brother  of  Wayland  Smith,  the  Norse  Vulcan.  In  Eng- 
land there  is  the  ballad  of  William  of  Cloudeslee,  which 
supplied  Scott  with  many  details  of  the  archery  scene 
in  "  Ivanhoe."    Here,  says  the  dauntless  bowman, 

*•  I  have  a  sonne  seven  yeai*s  old  ; 

Hee  is  to  me  full  deere  ; 
I  will  tye  him  to  a  stake  — 

All  shall  see  him  that  bee  here  — 
And  lay  an  apple  upon  his  head, 

And  goe  six  paces  him  froe, 
And  I  myself  with  a  broad  arrowe 

Shall  cleave  the  apple  in  towe. " 

In  the  Malleus  Maleficarum  a  similar  story  is  told  of 
Puncher,  a  famous  magician  on  the  Upper  Rhine.  The 
great  ethnologist  Gastrin  dug  up  the  same  legend  in  Fin- 
land. It  is  common,  as  Dr.  Dasent  observes,  to  the  Turks 
and  Mongolians ;  "  and  a  legend  of  the  wild  Samoyeds, 
who  never  heard  of  TeU  or  saw  a  book  in  their  lives, 
relates  it,  chapter  and  verse,  of  one  of  their  marksmen." 
Finally,  in  the  Persian  poem  of  Farid-Uddin  Attar,  born 
in  1119,  we  read  a  story  of  a  prince  who  shoots  an  apple 
from  the  head  of  a  beloved  page.  In  all  these  stories, 
names  and  motives  of  course  differ ;  but  all  contain  the 
same  essential  incidents.  It  is  always  an  unerring  archer 
who,  at  the  capricious  command  of  a  tyrant,  shoots  from 
the  head  of  some  one  dear  to  him  a  small  object,  be  it  an 
apple,  a  nut,  or  a  piece  of  coin.  The  archer  always  pro- 
vides himself  with  a  second  arrow,  and,  when  questioned 
as  to  the  use  he  intended  to  make  of  his  extra  weapon, 
the  invariable  reply  is,  "  To  kill  thee,  tyrant,  had  I  slain 
my  son."  Now,  when  a  marvellous  occurrence  is  said  to 
have  happened  everywhere,  we  may  feel  sure  that  it 


6 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


never  happened  anywhere.  Popular  fancies  propagate 
themselves  indefinitely,  but  historical  events,  especially 
the  striking  and  dramatic  ones,  are  rarely  repeated.  The 
facts  here  collected  lead  inevitably  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  Tell  myth  was  known,  in  its  general  features,  to 
oar  Aryan  ancestors,  before  ever  they  left  their  primitive 
dwelling-place  in  Central  Asia. 

It  may,  indeed,  be  urged  that  some  one  of  these  won- 
derful marksmen  may  really  have  existed  and  have  per- 
formed the  feat  recorded  in  the  legend  ;  and  that  his  true 
story,  carried  about  by  hearsay  tradition  from  one  coun- 
try to  another  and  from  age  to  age,  may  have  formed  the 
theme  for  all  the  variations  above  mentioned,  just  as  the 
fables  of  La  Fontaine  were  patterned  after  those  of  ^sop 
and  Phsedrus,  and  just  as  many  of  Chaucer's  tales  were 
consciously  adopted  from  Boccaccio.  No  doubt  there  has 
been  a  good  deal  of  borrowing  and  lending  among  the 
legends  of  different  peoples,  as  well  as  among  the  words 
of  different  languages ;  and  possibly  even  some  pictur- 
esque fragment  of  early  history  may  have  now  and  then 
been  carried  about  the  world  in  this  manner.  But  as  the 
philologist  can  with  almost  unerring  certainty  distinguish 
between  the  native  and  the  imported  words  in  any  Aryan 
language,  by  examining  their  phonetic  peculiarities,  so 
the  student  of  popular  traditions,  though  working  with 
far  less  perfect  instruments,  can  safely  assert,  with  refer- 
ence to  a  vast  number  of  legends,  that  they  cannot  have 
been  obtained  by  any  process  of  conscious  borrowing. 
The  difficulties  inseparable  from  any  such  hypothesis 
will  become  more  and  more  apparent  as  we  proceed  to 
examine  a  few  other  stories  current  in  different  portions 
of  the  Aryan  domain. 

As  the  Swiss  must  give  up  his  Tell,  so  must  the  Welsh- 
man be  deprived  of  his  brave  dog  Gellert,  over  whose 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


7 


cruel  fate  I  confess  to  having  shed  more  tears  than  I 
should  regard  as  well  bestowed  upon  the  misfortunes  of 
many  a  human  hero  of  romance.  Every  one  knows  how 
the  dear  old  brute  killed  the  wolf  which  had  come  to 
devour  Dewellyn's  child,  and  how  the  prince,  returning 
home  and  finding  the  cradle  upset  and  the  dog's  mouth 
dripping  blood,  hastily  slew  his  benefactor,  before  the  cry 
of  the  child  from  behind  the  cradle  and  the  sight  of  the 
wolf's  body  had  rectified  his  error.  To  this  day  the  vis- 
itor to  Snowdon  is  told  the  touching  story,  and  shown 
the  place,  called  Beth-GeUert,*  where  the  dog's  grave  is 
still  to  be  seen.  Nevertheless,  the  story  occurs  in  the 
fireside  lore  of  nearly  every  Aryan  people.  Under  the 
GeUert-form  it  started  in  the  Panchatantra,  a  collection 
of  Sanskrit  fables ;  and  it  has  even  been  discovered  in  a 
Chinese  work  which  dates  from  A.  D.  668.  Usually  the 
hero  is  a  dog,  but  sometimes  a  falcon,  an  ichneumon,  an 
insect,  or  even  a  man.  In  Egypt  it  takes  the  following 
comical  shape  :  "  A  Wali  once  smashed  a  pot  full  of  herbs 
which  a  cook  had  prepared.  The  exasperated  cook 
thrashed  the  well-intentioned  but  unfortunate  Wali  witliin 
an  inch  of  his  life,  and  when  he  returned,  exliausted  with 
his  efforts  at  belabouring  the  man,  to  examine  the  broken 
pot,  he  discovered  amongst  the  herbs  a  poisonous  snake."*!' 
Now  this  story  of  the  Wali  is  as  manifestly  identical 
with  the  legend  of  Gellert  as  the  English  word  fatlur  is 
with  the  Latin  pater ;  but  as  no  one  would  maintain 

♦According  to  Mr.  Isaac  Taylor,  the  name  is  really  derived  from  "St. 
Celert,  a  Welsh  saint  of  the  fifth  century,  to  whom  the  church  of  Llan- 
geller  is  consecrated."    (Words  and  Places,  p.  339.) 

t  Compare  Krilofs  story  of  the  Gnat  and  the  Shepherd,  in  Mr.  Rals- 
ton's  excellent  version,  Krilof  and  his  Fables,  p.  170.  Many  parallel 
examples  are  cited  by  Mr.  Baring-Gould,  Curious  Mj'ths,  Vol.  I.  pp. 
126  - 136.  See  also  the  story  of  Folliculus,  —  Swan,  Gesta  Romauonim, 
ed.  Wright,  Vol.  I.  p.  Ixxxii. 


8 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


that  the  word  father  is  in  any  sense  derived  from  jpater^ 
so  it  would  be  impossible  to  represent  either  the  Welsh 
or  the  Egyptian  legend  as  a  copy  of  the  other.  Obviously 
the  conclusion  is  forced  upon  us  that  the  stories,  like  the 
words,  are  related  collaterally,  having  descended  from  a 
common  ancestral  legend,  or  having  been  suggested  by 
one  and  the  same  primeval  idea. 

Closely  connected  with  the  Gellert  myth  are  the  stories 
of  Faithful  John  and  of  Eama  and  Luxman.  In  the 
German  story,  Faithful  John  accompanies  the  prince,  his 
master,  on  a  journey  in  quest  of  a  beautiful  maiden, 
whom  he  wishes  to  make  his  bride.  As  they  are  carry- 
ing her  home  across  the  seas.  Faithful  John  hears  some 
crows,  whose  language  he  understands,  foretelling  three 
dangers  impending  over  the  prince,  from  which  his  friend 
can  save  him  only  by  sacrificing  his  own  life.  As  soon 
as  they  land,  a  horse  will  spring  toward  the  king,  which, 
if  he  mounts  it,  wiU  bear  him  away  from  his  bride  for- 
ever ;  but  whoever  shoots  the  horse,  and  tells  the  king 
the  reason,  will  be  turned  into  stone  from  toe  to  knee. 
Then,  before  the  wedding  a  bridal  garment  will  lie  be- 
fore the  king,  which,  if  he  puts  it  on,  will  bum  him  like 
the  J^essos-shirt  of  Herakles;  but  whoever  throws  the 
shirt  into  the  fire  and  tells  the  king  the  reason,  will  be 
turned  into  stone  from  knee  to  heart.  Finally,  during 
the  wedding-festivities,  the  queen  will  suddenly  fall  in  a 
swoon,  and  "  unless  some  one  takes  three  drops  of  blood 
from  her  right  breast  she  will  die "  ;  but  whoever  does  so, 
and  tells  the  king  the  reason,  will  be  turned  into  stone 
from  head  to  foot.  Thus  forewarned.  Faithful  John  saves 
his  master  from  all  these  dangers ;  but  the  king  misinter- 
prets his  motive  in  bleeding  his  wife,  and  orders  him  to 
be  hanged.  On  the  scaffold  he  tells  his  story,  and  while 
the  king  humbles  himself  in  an  agony  of  remorse,  hia 
noble  friend  is  turned  into  stone. 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


9 


In  the  South  Indian  tale  Luxman  accompanies  Rama, 
who  is  carrying  home  his  bride.  Luxman  overhears  two 
owls  talking  about  the  perils  that  await  his  master  and 
mistress.  First  he  saves  them  from  being  crushed  by 
the  falling  limb  of  a  banyan-tree,  and  then  he  drags  them 
away  from  an  arch  which  immediately  after  gives  way. 
By  and  by,  as  they  rest  under  a  tree,  the  king  falls 
asleep.  A  cobra  creeps  up  to  the  queen,  and  Luxman 
kills  it  with  his  sword;  but,  as  the  owls  had  foretold, 
a  drop  of  the  cobra's  blood  falls  on  the  queen's  forehead. 
As  Luxman  hcks  off  the  blood,  the  king  starts  up,  and, 
thinking  that  his  vizier  is  kissing  his  wife,  upbraids  him 
with  his  ingratitude,  whereupon  Luxman,  through  gi'ief 
at  this  unkind  interpretation  of  his  conduct,  is  turned 
into  stone.* 

For  further  illustration  we  may  refer  to  the  Norse  tale 
of  the  "  Giant  who  had  no  Heart  in  his  Body,"  as  related 
by  Dr.  Dasent.  This  burly  magician  having  turned  six 
brothers  with  their  wives  into  stone,  the  seventh  brother 
—  the  crafty  Boots  or  many-witted  Odysseus  of  European 
folk-lore  —  sets  out  to  obtain  vengeance  if  not  reparation 
for  the  evil  done  to  his  kith  and  kin.  On  the  way  he 
shows  the  kindness  of  his  nature  by  rescuing  from  de- 
struction a  raven,  a  salmon,  and  a  wolf  The  grateful 
wolf  carries  him  on  his  back  to  the  giant's  castle,  where 
the  lovely  princess  whom  the  monster  keeps  in  irksome 
bondage  promises  to  act,  in  behalf  of  Boots,  the  part  of 
Delilah,  and  to  find  out,  if  possible,  where  her  lord  keeps 
his  heart.  The  giant,  like  the  Jewish  hero,  finally  suc- 
cumbs to  feminine  blandishments.  "  Far,  far  away  in  a 
lake  lies  an  island ;  on  that  island  stands  a  church ;  in 
that  church  is  a  well;  in  that  well  swims  a  duck;  in 
that  duck  there  is  an  egg ;  and  in  that  egg  there  lies  my 

•  See  Cox,  Mythology  of  the  Aryan  Nations,  Vol.  I.  pp.  145-149. 
1  • 


10 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


heart,  you  darling."  Boots,  thus  instructed,  rides  on  the 
wolf's  back  to  the  island ;  the  raven  flies  to  the  top  of  the 
steeple  and  gets  the  church-keys ;  the  salmon  dives  to 
the  bottom  of  the  well,  and  brings  up  the  egg  from  the 
place  where  the  duck  had  dropped  it;  and  so  Boots 
becomes  master  of  the  situation.  As  he  squeezes  the 
egg,  the  giant,  in  mortal  terror,  begs  and  prays  for  his 
life,  which  Boots  promises  to  spare  on  condition  that  his 
brothers  and  their  brides  should  be  released  from  their 
enchantment.  But  when  all  has  been  duly  effected,  the 
treacherous  youth  squeezes  the  egg  in  two,  and  the  giant 
instantly  bursts. 

The  same  story  has  lately  been  found  in  Southern 
India,  and  is  published  in  Miss  Frere's  remarkable  collec- 
tion of  tales  entitled  "  Old  Deccan  Days."  In  the  Hindu 
version  the  seven  daughters  of  a  rajah,  with  their  hus- 
bands, are  transformed  into  stone  by  the  great  magician 
Punchkin,  —  all  save  the  youngest  daughter,  whom 
Punchkin  keeps  shut  up  in  a  tower  until  by  threats 
or  coaxing  he  may  prevail  upon  her  to  marry  him.  But 
the  captive  princess  leaves  a  son  at  home  in  the  cradle, 
who  grows  up  to  manhood  unmolested,  and  finally  under- 
takes the  rescue  of  his  family.  After  long  and  weary 
wanderings  he  finds  his  mother  shut  up  in  Punchkin's 
tower,  and  persuades  her  to  play  the  part  of  the  princess 
in  the  Norse  legend.  The  trick  is  equally  successful. 
"  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  miles  away  there  lies  a  deso- 
late country  covered  with  thick  jungle.  In  the  midst  of 
the  jungle  grows  a  circle  of  palm-trees,  and  in  the  centre 
of  the  circle  stand  six  jars  full  of  water,  piled  one  above 
another ;  below  the  sixth  jar  is  a  small  cage  which  con- 
tains a  little  green  parrot ;  on  the  life  of  the  parrot  de- 
pends my  life,  and  if  the  parrot  is  killed  I  must  die."  * 

•  The  same  incident  occurs  in  the  Arabian  story  of  Sejrf-el-Mulook 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


II 


The  young  prince  finds  the  place  guarded  by  a  host  of 
dragons,  but  some  eaglets  whom  he  has  saved  from  a 
devouring  serpent  in  the  course  of  his  journey  take  him 
on  their  crossed  wings  and  carry  him  to  the  place  where 
the  jars  are  standing.  He  instantly  overturns  the  jars, 
and  seizing  the  parrot,  obtains  from  the  terrified  magi- 
cian full  reparation.  As  soon  as  his  own  friends  and 
a  stately  procession  of  other  royal  or  noble  victims  have 
been  set  at  liberty,  he  proceeds  to  pull  the  parrot  to 
pieces.  As  the  wings  and  legs  come  away,  so  tumble  off 
the  arms  and  legs  of  the  magician ;  and  finally  as  the 
prince  wrings  the  bird's  neck,  Punchkin  twists  his  own 
head  round  and  dies. 

The  story  is  also  told  in  the  highlands  of  Scotland,  and 
some  portions  of  it  will  be  recognized  by  the  reader  as 
incidents  in  the  Arabian  tale  of  the  Princess  Parizade. 
The  union  of  close  correspondence  in  conception  with 
manifest  independence  in  the  management  of  the  details 
of  these  stories  is  striking  enough,  but  it  is  a  phenomenon 
with  which  we  become  quite  familiar  as  we  proceed  in 
the  study  of  Aryan  popular  literature.  The  legend  of 
the  Master  Thief  is  no  less  remarkable  than  that  of 
Punchkin.  In  the  Scandinavian  tale  the  Thief,  wishing 
to  get  possession  of  a  farmer's  ox,  carefully  hangs  him- 
self to  a  tree  by  the  roadside.  The  farmer,  passing  by 
with  his  ox,  is  indeed  struck  by  the  sight  of  the  dangling 

and  Bedeea-el-Jeraal,  where  the  Jinni's  soul  is  enclosed  in  the  crop  of  a 
sparrow,  and  the  sparrow  imprisoned  in  a  small  box,  and  this  enclosed 
in  another  small  box,  and  this  again  in  seven  other  boxes,  which  are  put 
into  seven  chests,  contained  in  a  coffer  of  marble,  which  is  sunk  in  the 
ocean  that  surrounds  the  world.  Seyf-el-Mulook  raises  the  coffer  by 
the  aid  of  Suleymdn's  seal-ring,  and  having  extricated  the  sparrow, 
strangles  it,  whereupon  the  Jinni's  body  is  converted  into  a  heap  of 
black  ashes,  and  Seyf-el-Mulook  escapes  with  the  maiden  D61et-Kh4« 
toon.    See  Lane's  Arabian  Nights,  Vol.  HI.  p.  315. 


12 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


body,  but  thinks  it  none  of  his  business,  and  does  not  stop 
to  interfere.  No  sooner  has  he  passed  than  the  Thief  Jets 
himself  down,  and  running  swiftly  along  a  by-path,  hangs 
himself  with  equal  precaution  to  a  second  tree.  This 
time  the  farmer  is  astonished  and  puzzled ;  but  when  for 
the  third  time  he  meets  the  same  unwonted  spectacle, 
thinking  that  three  suicides  in  one  morning  are  too  much 
for  easy  credence,  he  leaves  his  ox  and  runs  back  to  see 
whether  the  other  two  bodies  are  really  where  he  thought 
he  saw  them.  While  he  is  framing  hypotheses  of  witch- 
craft by  which  to  explain  the  phenomenon,  the  Thief  gets 
away  with  the  ox.  In  the  Hitopadesa  the  story  receives 
a  finer  point.  "  A  Brahman,  who  had  vowed  a  sacrifice, 
went  to  the  market  to  buy  a  goat.  Three  thieves  saw 
him,  and  wanted  to  get  hold  of  the  goat.  They  stationed 
themselves  at  intervals  on  the  high  road.  When  the 
Brahman,  who  carried  the  goat  on  his  back,  approached 
the  first  thief,  the  thief  said,  '  Brahman,  why  do  you  carry 
a  dog  on  your  back  ? '  The  Brahman  replied, '  It  is  not 
a  dog,  it  is  a  goat.'  A  little  while  after  he  was  accosted 
by  the  second  thief,  who  said,  'Brahman,  why  do  you 
carry  a  dog  on  your  back?'  The  Brahman  felt  per- 
plexed, put  the  goat  down,  examined  it,  took  it  up  again, 
and  walked  on.  Soon  after  he  was  stopped  by  the  third 
thief,  who  said,  *  Brahman,  why  do  you  carry  a  dog  on 
your  back  ? '  Then  the  Brahman  was  frightened,  threw 
down  the  goat,  and  walked  home  to  perform  his  ablutions 
for  having  touched  an  unclean  animal.  The  thieves  took 
the  goat  and  ate  it."  The  adroitness  of  the  Norse  King 
in  "  The  Three  Princesses  of  Whiteland  "  shows  but  poor- 
ly in  comparison  with  the  keen  psychological  insight  and 
cynical  sarcasm  of  these  Hindu  sharpers.  In  the  course 
of  his  travels  this  prince  met  three  brothers  fighting  on 
a  lonely  moor.    They  had  been  fighting  for  a  hundred 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK  LORE. 


13 


years  about  the  possession  of  a  hat,  a  cloak,  and  a  pair 
of  boots,  which  would  make  the  wearer  invisible,  and 
convey  him  instantly  whithersoever  he  might  wish  to 
go.  The  King  consents  to  act  as  umpire,  pro\'ided  he 
may  once  try  the  virtue  of  the  magic  garments  ;  but  once 
clothed  in  them,  of  course  he  disappears,  leaving  the 
combatants  to  sit  down  and  suck  their  thimibs.  Now  in 
the  "Sea  of  Streams  of  Story,"  wTitten  in  the  tweKth 
century  by  Somadeva  of  Cashmere,  the  Indian  King 
Putraka,  wandering  in  the  Vindhya  Mountains,  similarly 
discomfits  two  brothers  who  are  quarrelling  over  a  pair 
of  shoes,  which  are  like  the  sandals  of  Hermes,  and  a 
bowl  which  has  the  same  virtue  as  Aladdin's  lamp. 
"  'Why  don't  you  run  a  race  for  them  ? "  suggests  Putraka ; 
and,  as  the  two  blockheads  start  furiously  off,  he  quietly 
picks  up  the  bowl,  ties  on  the  shoes,  and  flies  away !  * 

It  is  unnecessary  to  cite  further  illustrations.  The 
tales  here  quoted  are  fair  samples  of  the  remarkable  cor- 
respondence which  holds  good  through  all  the  various 
sections  of  Aryan  folk-lore.  The  hypothesis  of  lateral 
diffusion,  as  we  may  call  it,  manifestly  fails  to  explain 
coincidences  which  are  maintained  on  such  an  immense 
scale.  It  is  quite  credible  that  one  nation  may  have 
borrowed  from  another  a  solitary  legend  of  an  archer  who 
performs  the  feats  of  Tell  and  Pabiatoki ;  but  it  is  utterly 
incredible  that  ten  thousand  stories,  constituting  the  en- 
tire mass  of  household  mythology  throughout  a  dozen 
separate  nations,  should  have  been  handed  from  one  to 
another  in  this  way.  No  one  would  venture  to  suggest 
that  the  old  grannies  of  Iceland  and  Norway,  to  whom 
we  owe  such  stories  as  the  Master  Thief  and  the  Princesses 
of  Whiteland,  had  ever  read  Somadeva  or  heard  of  the 

*  The  same  incident  is  repeated  in  the  story  of  Hassan  of  El-Basrah. 
See  Lane's  Arabian  Nights,  Vol.  III.  p.  452. 


14 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


treasures  of  Ehampsinitos.  A  large  proportion  of  the 
tales  with  which  we  are  dealing  were  utterly  unknown 
to  literature  until  they  were  taken  down  by  Grimm  and 
Frere  and  Castren  and  Campbell,  from  the  lips  of  igno- 
rant peasants,  nurses,  or  house-servants,  in  Germany  and 
Hindustan,  in  Siberia  and  Scotland.  Yet,  as  Mr.  Cox 
observes,  these  old  men  and  women,  sitting  by  the  chim- 
ney-corner and  somewhat  timidly  recounting  to  the  lit- 
erary explorer  the  stories  which  they  had  learned  in  child- 
hood from  their  own  nurses  and  grandmas,  "  reproduce  the 
most  subtle  turns  of  thought  and  expression,  and  an  end- 
less series  of  complicated  narratives,  in  which  the  order 
of  incidents  and  the  words  of  the  speakers  are  preserved 
with  a  fidelity  nowhere  paralleled  in  the  oral  tradition 
of  historical  events.  It  may  safely  be  said  that  no  series 
of  stories  introduced  in  the  form  of  translations  from 
other  languages  could  ever  thus  have  filtered  down  into 
the  lowest  strata  of  society,  and  thence  have  sprung  up 
again,  like  Antaios,  with  greater  energy  and  heightened 
beauty."  There  is  indeed  no  alternative  for  us  but  to 
admit  that  these  fireside  tales  have  been  handed  down 
from  parent  to  child  for  more  than  a  hundred  genera- 
tions ;  that  the  primitive  Aryan  cottager,  as  he  took  his 
evening  meal  of  yava  and  sipped  his  fermented  mead, 
listened  with  his  children  to  the  stories  of  Boots  and 
Cinderella  and  the  Master  Thief,  in  the  days  when  the 
squat  Laplander  was  master  of  Europe  and  the  dark- 
skinned  Sudra  was  as  yet  unmolested  in  the  Punjab. 
Only  such  community  of  origin  can  explain  the  commu- 
nity in  character  between  the  stories  told  by  the  Aryan's 
descendants,  from  the  jungles  of  Ceylon  to  the  highlands 
of  Scotland. 

This  conclusion  essentially  modifies  our  view  of  the 
origin  and  growth  of  a  legend  like  that  of  William  TelL 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


15 


The  case  of  the  Tell  legend  is  radically  different  from  the 
case  of  the  blindness  of  Belisarius  or  the  burning  of  the 
Alexandrian  library  by  order  of  Omar.  The  latter  are 
isolated  stories  or  beliefs  ;  the  former  is  one  of  a  family 
of  stories  or  beliefs.  The  latter  are  untrustworthy  tradi- 
tions of  doubtful  events  ;  "but  in  dealing  with  the  former, 
we  are  face  to  face  with  a  myth. 

What,  then,  is  a  myth  ?  The  theory  of  Euhemeros, 
which  was  so  fashionable  a  century  ago,  in  the  days  of 
the  Abb^  Banier,  has  long  since  been  so  utterly  aban- 
doned that  to  refute  it  now  is  but  to  slay  the  slain.  The 
peculiarity  of  this  theory  was  that  it  cut  away  all  the 
extraordinary  features  of  a  given  myth,  wherein  dwelt  its 
inmost  significance,  and  to  the  dull  and  useless  residuum 
accorded  the  dignity  of  primeval  histoiy.  In  this  way 
the  myth  was  lost  without  compensation,  and  the  stu- 
dent, in  seeking  good  digestible  bread,  found  but  the 
hardest  of  pebbles.  Considered  merely  as  a  pretty  story, 
the  legend  of  the  golden  fruit  watched  by  the  dragon  in 
the  garden  of  the  Hesperides  is  not  without  its  value. 
But  wliat  merit  can  there  be  in  the  gratuitous  statement 
which,  degrading  the  grand  Doric  hero  to  a  level  with 
any  vulgar  fruit-stealer,  makes  Herakles  break  a  close 
with  force  and  arms,  and  carry  off  a  crop  of  oranges 
which  had  been  guarded  by  mastiffs  ?  It  is  still  worse 
when  we  come  to  the  more  homely  folk-lore  with  which 
the  student  of  mythology  now  has  to  deal.  The  theo- 
ries of  Banier,  which  limped  and  stumbled  awkwardly 
enough  when  it  was  only  a  question  of  Hermes  and 
Minos  and  Odin,  have  fallen  never  to  rise  again  since 
the  problems  of  Punchkin  and  Cinderella  and  the  Blue 
Belt  have  begun  to  demand  solution.  The  conclusion  has 
been  gradually  forced  upon  the  student,  that  the  marvel- 
lous portion  of  these  old  stories  is  no  illegitimate  excres- 


l6  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

cence,  but  was  rather  the  pith  and  centre  of  the  whole,* 
in  days  when  there  was  no  supernatural,  because  it  had 
not  yet  been  discovered  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as 
nature.  The  religious  myths  of  antiquity  and  the  fire- 
side legends  of  ancient  and  modern  times  have  their 
common  root  in  the  mental  habits  of  primeval  humanity. 
They  are  the  earliest  recorded  utterances  of  men  con- 
cerning the  visible  phenomena  of  the  world  into  which 
they  were  born. 

That  prosaic  and  coldly  rational  temper  with  which 
modern  men  are  wont  to  regard  natural  phenomena  was 
in  early  times  unknown.  We  have  come  to  regard  all 
events  as  taking  place  regularly,  in  strict  conformity  to 
law  :  whatever  our  official  theories  may  be,  we  instinc- 
tively take  this  view  of  things.  But  our  primitive  ances- 
tors knew  nothing  about  laws  of  nature,  nothing  about 
physical  forces,  nothing  about  the  relations  of  cause  and 
effect,  nothing  about  the  necessary  regularity  of  things. 
There  was  a  time  in  the  history  of  mankind  when  these 
things  had  never  been  inquired  into,  and  when  no  gener- 
alizations about  them  had  been  framed,  tested,  or  estab- 
lished. There  was  no  conception  of  an  order  of  nature, 
and  therefore  no  distinct  conception  of  a  supernatural 
order  of  things.  There  was  no  belief  in  miracles  as 
infractions  of  natural  laws,  but  there  was  a  belief  in  the 
occurrence  of  wonderful  events  too  mighty  to  have  been 
brought  about  by  ordinary  means.  There  was  an  unlim- 
ited capacity  for  believing  and  fancying,  because  fancy 
and  belief  had  not  yet  been  checked  and  headed  off  in 
various  directions  by  established  rules  of  experience. 
Physical  science  is  a  very  late  acquisition  of  the  human 
mind,  but  we  are  already  sufficiently  imbued  with  it  to 

♦  **  Retrancher  le  merveilleux  d'un  mythe,  c'est  le  supprimer."  — 
Br^al,  Hercule  et  Cacus,  p.  50. 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


17 


be  almost  completely  disabled  from  comprehending  the 
thoughts  of  our  ancestors.  "  How  Finn  cosmogonists 
could  have  believed  the  earth  and  heaven  to  be  made  out 
of  a  severed  egg,  the  upper  concave  shell  representing 
heaven,  the  yolk  being  earth,  and  the  crystal  surround- 
ing fluid  the  circumambient  ocean,  is  to  us  incomprehen- 
sible ;  and  yet  it  remains  a  fact  that  they  did  so  regard 
them.  How  the  Scandinavians  could  have  supposed  the 
mountains  to  be  the  mouldering  bones  of  a  miglity  Jotun, 
and  the  earth  to  be  his  festering  flesh,  we  cannot  con- 
ceive ;  yet  such  a  theory  was  solemnly  taught  and 
accepted.  How  the  ancient  Indians  could  regard  the 
rain-clouds  as  cows  with  full  udders  milked  by  the  winds 
of  heaven  is  beyond  our  comprehension,  and  yet  their 
Veda  contains  indisputable  testimony  to  the  fact  that 
they  were  so  regarded."  We  have  only  to  read  Mr. 
Baring-Gould's  book  of  "  Curious  Myths,"  from  which  I 
have  just  quoted,  or  to  dip  into  Mr.  Thorpe's  treatise  on 
"  Northern  Mythology,"  to  realize  how  vast  is  the  differ- 
ence between  our  stand-point  and  that  from  which,  in 
the  later  Middle  Ages,  our  immediate  forefathers  re- 
garded things.  The  frightful  superstition  of  werewolves 
is  a  good  instance.  In  those  days  it  was  firmly  believed 
that  men  could  be,  and  were  in  the  habit  of  being,  trans- 
formed into  wolves.  It  was  believed  that  women  might 
bring  forth  snakes  or  poodle-dogs.  It  was  believed  that 
if  a  man  had  his  side  pierced  in  battle,  you  could  cure 
him  by  nursing  the  sword  which  inflicted  the  wound. 
"As  late  as  1600  a  German  writer  would  illustrate  a 
thunder-storm  destroying  a  crop  of  corn  by  a  picture  of  a 
dragon  devouring  the  produce  of  the  field  with  his  flam- 
ing tongue  and  iron  teeth." 

Now  if  such  was  the  condition  of  the  human  intellect 
only  three  or  four  centuries  ago,  what  must  it  have  been 

B 


i8 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


in  that  dark  antiquity  when  not  even  the  crudest  gener- 
alizations of  Greek  or  of  Oriental  science  had  been 
reached  ?  The  same  mighty  power  of  imagination  which 
now,  restrained  and  guided  by  scientific  principles,  leads 
us  to  discoveries  and  inventions,  must  then  have  wildly 
run  riot  in  mythologic  fictions  whereby  to  explain  the 
phenomena  of  nature.  Knowing  nothing  whatever  of 
physical  forces,  of  the  blind  steadiness  with  which  a 
given  effect  invariably  follows  its  cause,  the  men  of  pri- 
meval antiquity  could  interpret  the  actions  of  nature 
only  after  the  analogy  of  their  own  actions.  The  only 
force  they  knew  was  the  force  of  which  they  were  directly 
conscious,  —  the  force  of  will.  Accordingly,  they  imag- 
ined all  the  outward  world  to  be  endowed  with  volition, 
and  to  be  directed  by  it.  They  personified  everything, 
—  sky,  clouds,  thunder,  sun,  moon,  ocean,  earthquake, 
whirlwind.*  The  comparatively  enlightened  Athenians 
of  the  age  of  Perikles  addressed  the  sky  as  a  person,  and 
prayed  to  it  to  rain  upon  their  gardens.-f  And  for  calling 
the  moon  a  mass  of  dead  matter,  Anaxagoras  came  near 
losing  his  life.  To  the  ancients  the  moon  was  not  a  life- 
less ball  of  stones  and  clods  :  it  was  the  horned  huntress, 
Artemis,  coursing  through  the  upper  ether,  or  bathing 
herself  in  the  clear  lake  ;  or  it  was  Aphrodite,  protectress 
of  lovers,  born  of  the  sea-foam  in  the  East  near  Cyprus. 
The  clouds  were  no  bodies  of  vaporized  water :  they  were 

*  "No  distinction  between  the  animate  and  inanimate  is  made  in  the 
languages  of  the  Esquimaux,  the  Choctaws,  the  Muskoghee,  and  the 
Caddo.  Only  the  Iroquois,  Cherokee,  and  the  Algonquin-Lenape  have 
it,  so  far  as  is  known,  and  with  them  it  is  partial."  According  to  the 
Fijians,  "vegetables  and  stones,  nay,  even  tools  and  weapons,  pots  and 
canoes,  have  souls  that  are  immortal,  and  that,  like  the  soals  of  men, 
pass  on  at  last  to  Mhulu,  the  abode  of  departed  spirits."  —  M'Lennan, 
The  "Worship  of  Animals  and  Plants,  Fortnightlv  Review,  Vol.  XII.  p. 
#16. 

t  Marcus  Aurelius,  V.  7. 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


COWS  with  swelling  udders,  driven  to  the  milking  by 
Hermes,  the  summer  wind;  or  great  sheep  with  moist 
fleeces,  slain  by  the  unerring  arrows  of  Bellerophon,  the 
sun ;  or  swan-maidens,  flitting  across  the  firmament, 
Valkyries  hovering  over  the  battle-field  to  receive  the 
souls  of  falhng  heroes ;  or,  again,  they  were  mighty 
mountains  piled  one  above  another,  in  whose  cavernous 
recesses  the  divining-wand  of  the  storm-god  Thor  revealed 
hidden  treasures.  The  yellow-haired  sun,  Phoibos,  drove 
westerly  all  day  in  his  flaming  chariot ;  or  perhaps,  as 
Meleagros,  retired  for  a  while  in  disgust  from  the  sight 
of  men ;  wedded  at  eventide  the  violet  light  (Oinone, 
lole),  which  he  had  forsaken  in  the  morning ;  sank,  as 
Herakles,  upon  a  blazing  funeral-pyre,  or,  like  Agamem- 
non, perished  in  a  blood-stained  bath  ;  or,  as  the  fish-god, 
Dagon,  swam  nightly  through  the  subterranean  waters, 
to  appear  eastward  again  at  daybreak.  Sometimes 
Phaethon,  his  rash,  inexperienced  son,  would  take  the 
reins  and  drive  the  solar  chariot  too  near  the  earth,  caus- 
ing the  fruits  to^  perish,  and  the  grass  to  wither,  and  the 
wells  to  dry  up.  Sometimes,  too,  the  great  all-seeing 
divinity,  in  his  wrath  at  the  impiety  of  men,  would  shoot 
down  his  scorching  arrows,  causing  pestilence  to  spread 
over  the  land.  Still  other  conceptions  clustered  around 
the  sun.  Now  it  was  the  wonderful  treasure-house,  into 
which  no  one  could  look  and  live  ;  and  again  it  was  Ixion 
himself,  bound  on  the  fiery  wheel  in  punishment  for  vio- 
lence offered  to  Here,  the  queen  of  the  blue  air. 

This  theory  of  ancient  mythology  is  not  only  beautiful 
and  plausible,  it  is,  in  its  essential  points,  demonstrated. 
It  stands  on  as  firm  a  foundation  as  Grimm's  law  in 
philology,  or  the  undulatory  theory  in  molecular  physics. 
It  is  philology  which  has  here  enabled  us  to  read  the 
primitive  thoughts  of  mankind.    A  large  number  of  the 


20 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


names  of  Greek  gods  and  heroes  have  no  meaning  in  the 

Greek  language ;  but  these  names  occur  also  in  Sanskrit, 
with  plain  physical  meanings.  In  the  Veda  we  find 
Zeus  or  Jupiter  (Dyaus-pitar)  meaning  the  sky,  and 
Sarameias  or  Hermes,  meaning  the  breeze  of  a  summer 
morning.  We  find  Athene  (Ahana),  meaning  the  light 
of  daybreak  ;  and  we  are  thus  enabled  to  understand  why 
the  Greek  described  her  as  sprung  from  the  forehead  of 
Zeus.  There  too  we  find  Helena  (Sarama),  the  fickle 
twilight,  whom  the  Panis,  or  night-demons,  who  serve  as 
the  prototypes  of  the  Hellenic  Paris,  strive  to  seduce 
from  her  allegiance  to  the  solar  monarch.  Even  Achilleus 
(Aharyu)  again  confronts  us,  with  his  captive  Briseis  (Bri- 
saya's  offspring) ;  and  the  fierce  Kerberos  (Qarvara)  barks 
on  Vedic  ground  in  strict  conformity  to  the  laws  of  pho- 
netics.* Now,  when  the  Hindu  talked  about  Father 
Dyaus,  or  the  sleek  kine  of  Siva,  he  thought  of  the  per- 
sonified sky  and  clouds ;  he  had  not  outgrown  the  primi- 
tive mental  habits  of  the  race.  But  the  Greek,  in  whose 
language  these  physical  meanings  were  lost,  had  long 
before  the  Homeric  epoch  come  to  regard  Zeus  and 
Hermes,  Athene,  Helena,  Paris,  and  Achilleus,  as  mere 
persons,  and  in  most  cases  the  originals  of  his  myths  were 
completely  forgotten.  In  the  Yedas  the  Trojan  War  is 
carried  on  in  the  sky,  between  the  bright  deities  and  the 
demons  of  night ;  but  the  Greek  poet,  influenced  perhaps 
by  some  dim  historical  tradition,  has  located  the  contest 
on  the  shore  of  the  Hellespont,  and  in  his  mind  the 

*  Some  of  these  etymologies  are  attacked  by  Mr.  Mahaffy  in  his  Pro- 
legomena to  Ancient  History,  p.  49.  After  long  consideration  I  am 
still  disposed  to  follow  Max  Miiller  in  adopting  them,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  AchiUeus.  With  Mr.  Mahaffy' s  suggestion  (p.  52)  that 
many  of  the  Homeric  legends  may  have  "clustered  around  some  his- 
torical basis,"  I  fully  agree  ;  as  will  appear,  further  on,  from  my  paper 
on    Juventus  Mundi." 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


21 


actors,  though  superhuman,  are  still  completely  anthro- 
pomorphic. Of  the  true  origin  of  his  epic  story  he  knew 
as  little  as  Euhemeros,  or  Lord  Bacon,  or  the  Abb^ 
Banier. 

After  these  illustrations,  we  shall  run  no  risk  of  being 
misunderstood  when  we  define  a  myth  as,  in  its  origin, 
an  explanation,  by  the  uncivilized  mind,  of  some  natural 
phenomenon ;  not  an  allegory,  not  an  esoteric  symbol,  — 
for  the  ingenuity  is  wasted  which  strives  to  detect  in 
myths  the  remnants  of  a  refined  primeval  science,  —  but 
an  explanation.  Primitive  men  had  no  profound  science 
to  perpetuate  by  means  of  allegory,  nor  were  they  such 
sorry  pedants  as  to  talk  in  riddles  when  plain  language 
would  serve  their  purpose.  Their  minds,  we  may  be  sure, 
worked  like  our  own,  and  when  they  spoke  of  tlie  far- 
darting  sun-god,  they  meant  just  what  they  said,  save 
that  where  we  propound  a  scientific  theorem,  they  con- 
structed a  myth.*  A  thing  is  said  to  be  explained  when 
it  is  classified  with  other  things  with  which  we  are  al- 
ready acquainted.  That  is  the  only  kind  of  explanation 
of  which  the  highest  science  is  capable.  We  explain  the 
origin,  progress,  and  ending  of  a  thunder-storm,  when  we 
classify  the  phenomena  presented  by  it  along  with  other 
more  familiar  phenomena  of  vaporization  and  condensa- 
tion. But  the  primitive  man  explained  the  same  thing 
to  his  own  satisfaction  when  he  had  classified  it  along 
with  the  well-known  phenomena  of  human  volition,  by 
constructing  a  theory  of  a  great  black  dragon  pierced  by 

*  "Les  facultes  qui  engendrent  la  mythologie  sont  les  memes  que 
celles  qui  engendront  la  philosophie,  et  ce  n'est  pas  sans  raison  que 
I'Inde  et  la  Grhce  nous  presentent  le  ph^nom^ne  de  la  plus  riche  my- 
thologie  k  cote  de  la  plus  profonde  metaphysique."  "  La  conception  de 
la  multiplicite  dans  I'univers,  c'est  le  polytheisme  chez  les  peuples  en- 
fants  ;  c'est  la  science  chez  les  peuples  arrives  k  I'^e  miir."  —  Renan, 
Hist,  des  Langues  S^mitiques,  Tom.  I.  p.  9. 


22 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS, 


the  unerring  arrows  of  a  heavenly  archer.  We  consider 
the  nature  of  the  stars  to  a  certain  extent  explained  when 
they  are  classified  as  suns ;  but  the  Mohammedan  com- 
piler of  the  "  Mishkat-ul-Ma'sabih "  was  content  to  ex- 
plain them  as  missiles  useful  for  stoning  the  Devil !  Now, 
as  soon  as  the  old  Greek,  forgetting  the  source  of  his 
conception,  began  to  talk  of  a  human  Oidipous  slaying  a 
leonine  Sphinx,  and  as  soon  as  the  Mussulman  began,  if 
he  ever  did,  to  tell  his  children  how  the  Devil  once  got 
a  good  pelting  with  golden  bullets,  then  both  the  one  and 
the  other  were  talking  pure  mythology. 

We  are  justified,  accordingly,  in  distinguishing  between 
a  myth  and  a  legend.  Though  the  words  are  etymologi- 
cally  parallel,  and  though  in  ordinary  discourse  we  may 
use  them  interchangeably,  yet  when  strict  accuracy  is 
required,  it  is  well  to  keep  them  separate.  And  it  is 
perhaps  needless,  save  for  the  sake  of  completeness,  to 
say  that  both  are  to  be  distinguished  from  stories  which 
have  been  designedly  fabricated.  The  distinction  may 
occasionally  be  subtle,  but  is  usually  broad  enough. 
Thus,  the  story  that  Philip  II.  murdered  his  wife  Eliza- 
beth, is  a  misrepresentation ;  but  the  story  that  the  same 
Elizabeth  was  culpably  enamoured  of  her  step-son  Don 
Carlos,  is  a  legend.  The  story  that  Queen  Eleanor  saved 
the  life  of  her  husband,  Edward  I.,  by  sucking  a  wound 
made  in  his  arm  by  a  poisoned  arrow,  is  a  legend ;  but 
the  story  that  Hercules  killed  a  great  robber,  Cacus,  who 
had  stolen  his  cattle,  conceals  a  physical  meaning,  and  is 
a  myth.  While  a  legend  is  usually  confined  to  one  or 
two  localities,  and  is  told  of  not  more  than  one  or  two 
persons,  it  is  characteristic  of  a  myth  that  it  is  spread,  in 
one  form  or  another,  over  a  large  part  of  the  earth,  the 
leading  incidents  remaining  constant,  while  the  names 
and  often  the  motives  vary  with  each  locality.    Thi?  is 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE, 

partly  due  to  the  immense  antiquity  of  myths,  dating  as 
they  do  from  a  period  when  many  nations,  now  widely 
separated,  had  not  yet  ceased  to  form  one  people.  Thus, 
many  elements  of  the  myth  of  the  Trojan  War  are  to  be 
found  in  the  Rig- Veda ;  and  the  myth  of  St.  George  and 
the  Dragon  is  found  in  all  the  Aryan  nations.  But  we 
must  not  always  infer  that  myths  have  a  common  descent, 
merely  because  they  resemble  each  other.  We  must  re- 
member that  the  proceedings  of  the  uncultivated  mind 
are  more  or  less  alike  in  all  latitudes,  and  that  the  same 
phenomenon  might  in  various  places  independently  give 
rise  to  similar  stories.*  The  myth  of  Jack  and  the  Bean- 
Stalk  is  found  not  only  among  people  of  Aryan  descent, 
but  also  among  the  Zulus  of  South  Africa,  and  again 
among  the  American  Indians.  Whenever  we  can  trace 
a  story  in  this  way  from  one  end  of  the  world  to  the 
other,  or  through  a  whole  family  of  kindred  nations,  we 
are  pretty  safe  in  assuming  that  we  are  dealing  with  a 
true  myth,  and  not  with  a  mere  legend. 

Applying  these  considerations  to  the  Tell  myth,  we  at 
once  obtain  a  valid  explanation  of  its  origin.  The  con- 
ception of  infallible  skill  in  archery,  which  underlies  such 
a  great  variety  of  myths  and  popular  fairy-tales,  is  origi- 
nally derived  from  the  inevitable  victory  of  the  sun  over 
his  enemies,  the  demons  of  night,  winter,  and  tempest 
Arrows  and  spears  which  never  miss  their  mark,  swords 
from  whose  blow  no  armour  can  protect,  are  invariably 
the  w^eapons  of  solar  divinities  or  heroes.  The  shafts  of 
Bellerophon  never  fail  to  slay  the  black  demon  of  the 
rain-cloud,  and  the  bolt  of  Phoibos  Chrysaor  deals  sure 
destruction  to  the  serpent  of  winter.  Odysseus,  warring 
against  the  impious  night-heroes,  who  have  endeavoured 

*  Cases  coming  under  this  head  are  discussed  further  on,  in  my  paper 
on  "  Myths  of  the  Barbaric  "World." 


24 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


throughout  ten  long  years  or  hours  of  darkness  to  seduce 
from  her  allegiance  his  twilight-bride,  the  weaver  of  the 
never-finished  web  of  violet  clouds,  —  Odysseus,  stripped 
of  his  beggar's  raiment  and  endowed  with  fresh  youth 
and  beauty  by  the  dawn-goddess,  Athene,  engages  in 
no  doubtful  conflict  as  he  raises  the  bow  which  none  but 
himseK  can  bend.  Nor  is  there  less  virtue  in  the  spear 
of  Achilleus,  in  the  swords  of  Perseus  and  Sigurd,  in 
Eoland's  stout  blade  Durandal,  or  in  the  brand  Excali- 
bur,  with  which  Sir  Bedivere  was  so  loath  to  part.  All 
these  are  solar  weapons,  and  so,  too,  are  the  arrows  of 
Tell  and  Palnatoki,  Egil  and  Hemingr,  and  William  of 
Cloudeslee,  whose  surname  proclaims  him  an  inhabitant 
of  the  Phaiakian  land.  William  Tell,  whether  of  Cloud- 
land  or  of  Altdorf,  is  the  last  reflection  of  the  beneficent 
divinity  of  daytime  and  summer,  constrained  for  a  while 
to  obey  the  caprice  of  the  powers  of  cold  and  darkness, 
as  Apollo  served  Laomedon,  and  Herakles  did  the  bid- 
ding of  Eurystheus.  His  solar  character  is  well  pre- 
served, even  in  the  sequel  of  the  Swiss  legend,  in  which 
he  appears  no  less  skilful  as  a  steersman  than  as  an 
archer,  and  in  which,  after  traversing,  like  Dagon,  the 
tempestuous  sea  of  night,  he  leaps  at  daybreak  in  re- 
gained freedom  upon  the  land,  and  strikes  down  the 
oppressor  who  has  held  him  in  bondage. 

But  the  sun,  though  ever  victorious  in  open  contest 
with  his  enemies,  is  nevertheless  not  invulnerable.  At 
times  he  succumbs  to  treachery,  is  bound  by  the  frost- 
giants,  or  slain  by  the  demons  of  darkness.  The  poisoned 
shirt  of  the  cloud-fiend  Nessos  is  fatal  even  to  the  mighty 
Herakles,  and  the  prowess  of  Siegfried  at  last  fails  to 
save  him  from  the  craft  of  Hagen.  In  Achilleus  and 
Meleagros  we  see  the  unhappy  solar  hero  doomed  to  toil 
for  the  profit  of  others,  and  to  be  cut  off  by  an  untimely 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


25 


death.  The  more  fortunate  Odysseus,  who  lives  to  a  ripe 
old  age,  and  triumphs  again  and  again  over  all  the  powers 
of  darkness,  must  nevertheless  yield  to  the  craving  desire 
to  visit  new  cities  and  look  upon  new  works  of  strange 
men,  until  at  last  he  is  swallowed  up  in  the  western  sea. 
That  the  unrivalled  navigator  of  the  celestial  ocean  should 
disappear  beneath  the  western  waves  is  as  intelligible  as 
it  is  that  the  horned  Venus  or  Astarte  should  rise  from 
the  sea  in  the  far  east.  It  is  perhaps  less  obvious  that 
winter  should  be  so  frequently  symbolized  as  a  thorn  or 
sharp  instrument.  Achilleus  dies  by  an  arrow-wound  in 
the  heel;  the  thigh  of  Adonis  is  pierced  by  the  boar's 
tusk,  while  Odysseus  escapes  with  an  ugly  scar,  which 
afterwards  secures  his  recognition  by  his  old  servant,  the 
dawn-nymph  Eurykleia ;  Sigurd  is  slain  by  a  thorn,  and 
Balder  by  a  sharp  sprig  of  mistletoe ;  and  in  the  myth 
of  the  Sleeping  Beauty,  the  earth-goddess  sinks  into  her 
long  winter  sleep  when  pricked  by  the  point  of  the  spin- 
dle. In  her  cosmic  palace,  all  is  locked  in  icy  repose, 
naught  thriving  save  the  ivy  which  defies  the  cold,  until 
the  kiss  of  the  golden-haired  sun-god  reawakens  life  and 
activity. 

The  wintry  sleep  of  nature  is  s5rnibolized  in  innumer- 
able stories  of  spell-bound  maidens  and  fair-featured 
youths,  saints,  martyrs,  and  heroes.  Sometimes  it  is  the 
sun,  sometimes  the  earth,  that  is  supposed  to  slumber. 
Among  the  American  Indians  the  sun-god  Michabo  is 
said  to  sleep  through  the  winter  months ;  and  at  the 
time  of  the  falling  leaves,  by  way  of  composing  himself 
for  his  nap,  he  fills  his  great  pipe  and  divinely  smokes ; 
the  blue  clouds,  gently  floating  over  the  landscape,  fiU 
the  air  with  the  haze  of  Indian  summer.  In  the  Greek 
myth  the  shepherd  Endymion  preserves  his  freshness  in 
a  perennial  slumber.  The  German  Siegfried,  pierced  by 
2 


Z6  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

the  thorn  of  winter,  is  sleeping  until  he  shall  be  again 
called  forth  to  fight.  In  Switzerland,  by  the  Vierwald- 
stattersee,  three  Tells  are  awaiting  the  hour  when  their 
country  shall  again  need  to  be  delivered  from  the  oppres- 
sor. Charlemagne  is  reposing  in  the  Untersberg,  sword 
in  hand,  waiting  for  the  coming  of  Antichrist;  Olger 
Danske  similarly  dreams  away  his  time  in  Avallon ;  and 
in  a  lofty  mountain  in  Thuringia,  the  great  Emperor 
Frederic  Barbarossa  slumbers  with  his  knights  around 
him,  imtil  the  time  comes  for  him  to  sally  forth  and  raise 
Germany  to  the  first  rank  among  the  kingdoms  of  the 
world.  The  same  story  is  told  of  Olaf  Tryggvesson,  of 
Don  Sebastian  of  Portugal,  and  of  the  Moorish  King 
Boabdil.  The  Seven  Sleepers  of  Ephesus,  having  taken 
refuge  in  a  cave  from  the  persecutions  of  the  heathen 
Decius,  slept  one  hundred  and  sixty-four  years,  and 
awoke  to  find  a  Christian  emperor  on  the  throne.  The 
monk  of  Hildesheim,  in  the  legend  so  beautifully  ren- 
dered by  Longfellow,  doubting  how  with  God  a  thousand 
years  ago  could  be  as  yesterday,  listened  three  minutes 
entranced  by  the  singing  of  a  bird  in  the  forest,  and 
found,  on  waking  from  his  revery,  that  a  thousand  years 
had  flown.  To  the  same  family  of  legends  belong  the 
notion  that  St.  John  is  sleeping  at  Ephesus  until  the  last 
days  of  the  world;  the  myth  of  the  enchanter  Merlin, 
spell-bound  by  Vivien ;  the  story  of  the  Cretan  philoso- 
pher Epimenides,  who  dozed  away  fifty-seven  years 
in  a  cave ;  and  Eip  Van  Winkle's  nap  in  the  Cats- 
kills.* 

We  might  go  on  almost  indefinitely  citing  household 
tales  of  wonderful  sleepers ;  but,  on  the  principle  of  the 

*  A  collection  of  these  interesting  legends  may  be  found  in  Baring- 
Gould's  "  Curious  Myths  of  the  Middle  Ages,"  of  which  work  this  paper 
was  originally  a  review. 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


27 


association  of  opposites,  we  are  here  reminded  of  sundry 
cases  of  marvellous  life  and  wakefulness,  illustrated  in 
the  Wandering  Jew ;  the  dancers  of  Kolbeck  ;  Joseph  of 
Arimathsea  with  the  Holy  Grail;  the  Wild  Huntsman, 
who  to  all  eternity  chases  the  red  deer ;  the  Captain  of 
the  Phantom  Ship ;  the  classic  Tithonos ;  and  the  Man  in 
the  Moon. 

The  lunar  spots  have  afforded  a  rich  subject  for  the 
play  of  human  fancy.  Plutarch  wrote  a  treatise  on 
them,  but  the  myth-makers  had  been  before  him. 
"  Every  one,"  says  Mr.  Baring-Gould,  "  knows  that 
the  moon  is  inhabited  by  a  man  with  a  bundle  of 
sticks  on  his  back,  who  has  been  exiled  thither  for 
many  centuries,  and  who  is  so  far  off  that  he  is  beyond 
the  reach  of  death.  He  has  once  visited  this  earth,  if 
the  nursery  rhyme  is  to  be  credited  when  it  asserts  that 

*  The  Man  in  the  Moon 
Came  down  too  soon 
And  asked  his  way  to  Norwich '  ; 

but  whether  he  ever  reached  that  city  the  same  authority 
does  not  state."  Dante  calls  him  Cain ;  Chaucer  has  him 
put  up  there  as  a  punishment  for  theft,  and  gives  him  a 
thorn-bush  to  carry ;  Shakespeare  also  loads  him  with 
the  thorns,  but  by  way  of  compensation  gives  him  a  dog 
for  a  companion.  Ordinarily,  however,  his  offence  is 
stated  to  have  been,  not  stealing,  but  Sabbath-breaking, 
—  an  idea  derived  from  the  Old  Testament.  Like  the 
man  mentioned  in  the  Book  of  Numbers,  he  is  caught 
gathering  sticks  on  the  Sabbath ;  and,  as  an  example  to 
mankind,  he  is  condemned  to  stand  forever  in  the  moon, 
with  his  bundle  on  his  back.  Instead  of  a  dog,  one  Ger- 
man version  places  with  him  a  woman,  whose  crime  was 
churning  butter  on  Sunday.  She  carries  her  butter-tub ; 
and  this  brings  us  to  Mother  Goose  again :  — 


28 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


"  Jack  and  Jill  went  up  the  hill 
To  get  a  pail  of  water. 
Jack  fell  down  and  broke  his  crown. 
And  Jill  came  tumbling  after." 

This  may  read  like  mere  nonsense  ;  but  there  is  a  point 
of  view  from  which  it  may  be  safely  said  that  there  is 
very  little  absolute  nonsense  in  the  world.  The  story  of 
Jack  and  Jill  is  a  venerable  one.  In  Icelandic  mythology 
we  read  that  Jack  and  Jill  were  two  children  whom  the 
moon  once  kidnapped  and  carried  up  to  heaven.  They 
had  been  drawing  water  in  a  bucket,  which  they  were 
carrying  by  means  of  a  pole  placed  across  their  shoulders ; 
and  in  this  attitude  they  have  stood  to  the  present  day 
in  the  moon.  Even  now  this  explanation  of  the  moon- 
spots  is  to  be  heard  from  the  mouths  of  Swedish  peasants. 
They  fall  away  one  after  the  other,  as  the  moon  wanes, 
and  their  water-pail  symbolizes  the  supposed  connection 
of  the  moon  with  rain-storms.  Other  forms  of  the  myth 
occur  in  Sanskrit. 

The  moon-goddess,  or  Aphrodite,  of  the  ancient  Ger- 
mans, was  called  Horsel,  or  Ursula,  who  figures  in 
Christian  mediaeval  mythology  as  a  persecuted  saint, 
attended  by  a  troop  of  eleven  thousand  virgins,  who  all 
suffer  martyrdom  as  they  journey  from  England  to  Co- 
logne. The  meaning  of  the  myth  is  obvious.  In  German 
mythology,  England  is  the  Phaiakian  land  of  clouds  and 
phantoms ;  the  succubus,  leaving  her  lover  before  day- 
break, excuses  herself  on  the  plea  that  "  her  mother  is 
calling  her  in  England."  *  The  companions  of  Ursula 
are  the  pure  stars,  who  leave  the  cloudland  and  suffer 
martyrdom  as  they  approach  the  regions  of  day.  In  the 
Christian  tradition,  Ursula  is  the  pure  Artemis ;  but,  in 

*  $ee  Procopius,  De  Bello  Gothico,  IV.  20  ;  Yillemarque,  Barzas 
Breiz,  I.  136.  As  a  child  I  was  instructed  by  an  old  nurse  that  Van 
Diemen's  Land  is  the  home  of  ghosts  and  departed  spirits. 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


29 


accordance  with  her  ancient  character,  she  is  likewise  the 
sensual  Aphrodite,  who  haunts  the  Venusberg ;  and  this 
brings  us  to  the  story  of  Tannhauser. 

The  Horselberg,  or  mountain  of  Venus,  lies  in  Thu- 
ringia,  between  Eisenach  and  Gotha.  High  up  on  its 
slope  yawns  a  cavern,  the  Horselloch,  or  cave  of  Venus, 
within  which  is  heard  a  muffled  roar,  as  of  subterranean 
water.  From  this  cave,  in  old  times,  the  frightened  in- 
habitants of  the  neighbouring  valley  would  hear  at  night 
wild  moans  and  cries  issuing,  mingled  with  peals  of 
demon-like  laughter.  Here  it  was  believed  that  Venus 
held  her  court ;  "  and  there  were  not  a  few  who  declared 
that  they  had  seen  fair  forms  of  female  beauty  beckoning 
them  from  the  mouth  of  the  chasm."*  Tannhauser  was 
a  Frankish  knight  and  famous  minnesinger,  who,  trav- 
elling at  twilight  past  the  Horselberg,  '*  saw  a  white 
glimmering  figure  of  matchless  beauty  standing  before 
him  and  beckoning  him  to  her."  Leaving  his  horse,  he 
went  up  to  meet  her,  whom  he  knew  to  be  none  other 
than  Venus.  He  descended  to  her  palace  in  the  heart  of 
the  mountain,  and  there  passed  seven  years  in  careless 
revelry.  Then,  stricken  with  remorse  and  yearning  for 
another  glimpse  of  the  pure  light  of  day,  he  called  in 
agony  upon  the  Virgin  Mother,  who  took  compassion  on 
him  and  released  him.  He  sought  a  village  church,  and 
to  priest  after  priest  confessed  his  sin,  without  obtaining 
absolution,  until  finally  he  had  recourse  to  the  Pope.  But 
the  holy  father,  horrified  at  the  enormity  of  his  misdoing, 
declared  that  guilt  such  as  his  could  never  be  remitted  : 
sooner  should  the  staff  in  his  hand  grow  green  and  blos- 
som. "Then  Tannhauser,  full  of  despair  and  with  his 
soul  darkened,  went  away,  and  returned  to  the  only 
asylum  open  to  him,  the  Venusberg.    But  lo  !  three  days 

*  Baring-Gould,  Curious  Myths,  Vol.  I.  p.  197. 


30 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


after  he  had  gone,  Pope  Urban  discovered  that  his  pas- 
toral staff  had  put  forth  buds  and  had  burst  into  flower. 
Tlien  he  sent  messengers  after  Tannhiiuser,  and  they 
reached  the  Hbrsel  vale  to  hear  that  a  wayworn  man, 
with  haggard  brow  and  bowed  liead,  had  just  entered  the 
Horselloch.  Since  then  Tannhauser  has  not  been  seen." 
(p.  201.) 

As  Mr.  Baring-Gould  rightly  observes,  this  sad  legend, 
in  its  Christianized  form,  is  doubtless  descrijDtive  of  the 
struggle  between  the  new  and  the  old  faiths.  The  knight- 
ly Tannhauser,  satiated  with  pagan  sensuality,  turns  to 
Christianity  for  relief,  but,  repelled  by  the  hypocrisy, 
pride,  and  lack  of  sympathy  of  its  ministers,  gives  up  in 
despair,  and  returns  to  drown  his  anxieties  in  his  old 
debauchery. 

But  this  is  not  the  primitive  form  of  the  myth,  w^hich 
recurs  in  the  folk-lore  of  every  people  of  Aryan  descent. 
Wlio,  indeed,  can  read  it  without  being  at  once  reminded 
of  Thomas  of  Erceldoune  (or  Horsel-hill),  entranced  by 
the  sorceress  of  the  Eilden  ;  of  the  nightly  visits  of  Numa 
to  the  grove  of  the  nymph  Egeria ;  of  Odysseus  held  cap- 
tive by  the  Lady  Kalypso ;  and,  last  but  not  least,  of  the 
delightful  Arabian  tale  of  Prince  Ahmed  and  the  Peri 
Banou  ?  On  his  westward  journey,  Odysseus  is  ensnared 
and  kept  in  temporary  bondage  by  the  amorous  nymph 
of  darkness,  Kalypso  (KaXvirTO),  to  veil  or  cover).  So  the 
zone  of  the  moon-goddess  Aphrodite  inveigles  all-seeing 
Zeus  to  treacherous  slumber  on  Mount  Ida;  and  by  a 
similar  sorcery  Tasso's  great  hero  is  lulled  in  unseemly 
idleness  in  Armida's  golden  paradise,  at  the  western  verge 
of  the  world.  The  disappearance  of  Tannhauser  behind 
the  moonlit  cliff,  lured  by  Venus  Ursula,  the  pale  goddess 
of  night,  is  a  precisely  parallel  circumstance. 

But  solar  and  lunar  phenomena  are  by  no  means  the 


THE  OMIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


31 


only  sources  of  popular  mythology.  Opposite  my  writ- 
ing-table hangs  a  quaint  German  picture,  illustrating 
Goethe's  ballad  of  the  Erlking,  in  which  the  whole 
wild  pathos  of  tlie  story  is  compressed  into  one  supreme 
moment ;  we  see  the  fearful,  half-gliding  rush  of  the  Erl- 
king, his  long,  spectral  arms  outstretched  to  grasp  the 
child,  the  frantic  gallop  of  the  horse,  the  alarmed  father 
clasping  his  darling  to  his  bosom  in  convulsive  embrace, 
the  siren-like  elves  hovering  overhead,  to  lure  the  little 
soul  with  their  weird  harps.  There  can  be  no  better 
illustration  than  is  furnished  by  this  terrible  scene  of  the 
magic  power  of  mythology  to  invest  the  simplest  physical 
phenomena  with  the  most  intense  human  interest;  for 
the  true  significance  of  the  whole  picture  is  contained  in 
the  father's  address  to  his  child, 

"Sei  ruhig,  bleibe  ruhig,  mein  Kind  ; 
In  diirren  Blattern  sauselt  der  Wind." 

The  story  of  the  Piper  of  Hamelin,  well  known  in  the 

version  of  Eobert  Browning,  leads  to  tlie  same  conclusion. 
In  1284  the  good  people  of  Hamelin  could  obtain  no  rest, 
night  or  day,  by  reason  of  the  direful  host  of  rats  which 
infested  their  town.  One  day  came  a  strange  man  in  a 
bimting-suit,  and  offered  for  five  hundred  guilders  to  rid 
the  town  of  the  vermin.  The  people  agreed  :  whereupon 
the  man  took  out  a  pipe  and  piped,  and  instantly  all  the 
rats  in  town,  in  an  army  which  blackened  the  face  of  the 
earth,  came  forth  from  their  haunts,  and  followed  the 
piper  until  he  piped  them  to  the  river  Weser,  where  they 
all  jumped  in  and  were  drowned.  But  as  soon  as  the 
torment  was  gone,  the  townsfolk  refused  to  pay  the  piper, 
on  the  ground  that  he  was  evidently  a  wizard.  He  went 
away,  voAving  vengeance,  and  on  St.  John's  day  reap- 
peared, and  putting  his  pipe  to  his  mouth  blew  a  dif- 
ferent air.    Whereat  all  the  little,  plump,  rosy-cheeked, 


3^ 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS^ 


golden-haired  children  came  merrily  running  after  him, 
their  parents  standing  aghast,  not  knowing  what  to  do, 
while  he  led  them  up  a  hill  in  the  neighbourhood.  A  door 
opened  in  the  mountain-side,  tlirough  which  he  led  them 
in,  and  they  never  were  seen  again ;  save  one  lame  boy, 
who  hobbled  not  fast  enough  to  get  in  before  the  door 
shut,  and  who  lamented  for  the  rest  of  his  life  that  he 
had  not  been  able  to  share  the  rare  luck  of  his  comrades. 
In  the  street  through  which  this  procession  passed  no 
music  was  ever  afterwards  allowed  to  be  played.  For  a 
long  time  the  town  dated  its  public  documents  from  this 
fearful  calamity,  and  many  authorities  have  treated  it  as 
an  historical  event.*  Similar  stories  are  told  of  other 
towns  in  Germany,  and,  strange  to  say,  in  remote  Abys- 
sinia also.  Wesleyan  peasants  in  England  believe  that 
angels  pipe  to  children  who  are  about  to  die ;  and  in 
Scandinavia,  youths  are  said  to  have  been  enticed  away 
by  the  songs  of  elf-maidens.  In  Greece,  the  sirens  by 
their  magic  lay  allured  voyagers  to  destruction;  and 
Orpheus  caused  the  trees  and  dumb  beasts  to  follow  him. 
Here  we  reach  the  explanation.  For  Orpheus  is  the 
wind  sighing  through  untold  acres  of  pine  forest.  "  The 
piper  is  no  other  than  the  wind,  and  the  ancients  held 
that  in  the  wind  were  the  souls  of  the  dead."  To  this  day 
the  English  peasantry  believe  that  they  hear  the  w^ail  of 
the  spirits  of  unbaptized  children,  as  the  gale  sweeps 
past  their  cottage  doors.  The  Greek  Hermes  resulted 
from  the  fusion  of  two  deities.  He  is  the  sun  and  also 
the  wind ;  and  in  the  latter  capacity  he  bears  away  the 
souls  of  the  dead.  So  the  Norse  Odin,  who  like  Hermes 
fulfils  a  double  function,  is  supposed  to  rush  at  night 
over  the  tree-tops,  "  accompanied  by  the  scudding  train 
of  brave  men's  spirits."    And  readers  of  recent  French 

*  Hence  perhaps  the  adage,  "Always  remember  to  pay  the  piper." 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


33 


literature  cannot  fail  to  remember  Erckmann-Chatrian's 
terrible  story  of  the  wild  huntsman  Vittikab,  and  how  he 
sped  through  the  forest,  carrying  away  a  young  girl's 
soul. 

Thus,  as  Tannhiiuser  is  the  Northern  Ulysses,  so  is 
Goethe's  Erlking  none  other  than  the  Piper  of  Hamelin. 
And  the  piper,  in  turn,  is  the  classic  Hermes  or  Orpheus, 
the  counterpart  of  the  Finnish  Wainamoinen  and  the 
Sanskrit  Gunadhya.  His  wonderful  pipe  is  the  horn  of 
Oberon,  the  lyre  of  Apollo  (who,  like  the  piper,  was  a 
rat-killer),  the  harp  stolen  by  Jack  wlien  he  climbed 
the  bean-stalk  to  the  ogre's  castle.*  And  the  father,  in 
Goethe's  ballad,  is  no  more  than  right  when  he  assures 
his  child  that  the  siren  voice  which  tempts  him  is  but 
the  rustle  of  the  wind  among  the  dried  leaves;  for  from 
such  a  simple  class  of  phenomena  arose  this  entire  fam- 
ily of  charming  legends. 

But  why  does  the  piper,  who  is  a  leader  of  souls  {Psy- 
chopompos),  also  draw  rats  after  him  ?  In  answering  this 
we  shall  have  occasion  to  note  that  the  ancients  by  no 
means  sliared  that  curious  prejudice  against  the  brute 
creation  which  is  indulged  in  by  modern  anti-Darwin- 
ians. In  many  countries,  rats  and  mice  have  been  re- 
garded as  sacred  animals;  but  in  Germany  they  were 
thought  to  represent  the  human  soul.  One  story  out  of 
a  hundred  must  suffice  to  illustrate  this.  "  In  Thuringia, 
at  Saalfeld,  a  servant-girl  fell  asleep  whilst  her  compan- 
ions were  shelling  nuts.  They  observed  a  little  red 
mouse  creep  from  her  mouth  and  run  out  of  the  window. 

*  And  it  reappears  as  the  mysterious  lyre  of  the  Gaelic  musician, 
who 

**  Could  har])  a  fish  out  o'  the  water, 
Or  bluid  out  of  a  staue, 
Or  milk  out  of  a  maiden's  breast, 
That  baii  ns  had  never  nane." 
2*  O 


34 


MYTHS  AJSD  MYTH-MAKERS. 


One  of  the  fellows  present  shook  the  sleeper,  but  could 
not  wake  her,  so  he  moved  her  to  another  place.  Pres- 
ently the  mouse  ran  back  to  the  former  place  and  dashed 
about,  seeking  the  girl;  not  finding  her,  it  vanished;  at 
the  same  moment  the  girl  died."*  This  completes  the 
explanation  of  the  piper,  and  it  also  furnishes  the  key  to 
the  horrible  story  of  Bishop  Hatto. 

This  wicked  prelate  lived  on  the  bank  of  the  Ehine, 
in  the  middle  of  which  stream  he  possessed  a  tower,  now 
pointed  out  to  travellers  as  the  Mouse  Tower.  In  the 
year  970  there  was  a  dreadful  famine,  and  people  came 
from  far  and  near  craving  sustenance  out  of  the  Bishop's 
ample  and  well-filled  granaries.  Well,  he  told  them  all 
to  go  into  the  barn,  and  when  they  had  got  in  there,  as 
mauy  as  could  stand,  he  set  fire  to  the  barn  and  burnt 
them  all  up,  and  went  home  to  eat  a  merry  supper.  But 
when  he  arose  next  morning,  he  heard  that  an  army  of 
rats  had  eaten  all  the  corn  in  his  granaries,  and  was  now 
advancing  to  storm  the  palace.  Looking  from  his  win- 
dow, he  saw  the  roads  and  fields  dark  with  them,  as  they 
came  with  fell  purpose  straight  toward  his  mansion.  In 
frenzied  terror  he  took  his  boat  and  rowed  out  to  the 
tower  in  the  river.  But  it  was  of  no  use  :  down  into  the 
water  marched  the  rats,  and  swam  across,  and  scaled  the 
walls,  and  gnawed  through  the  stones,  and  came  swarm- 
ing  in  about  the  shrieking  Bishop,  and  ate  him  up,  flesh, 
bones,  and  all.  IS'ow,  bearing  in  mind  what  was  said 
above,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  these  rats  were  the 
souls  of  those  whom  the  Bishop  had  murdered.  There 
are  many  versions  of  the  story  in  different  Teutonic 
countries,  and  in  some  of  them  the  avenging  rats  or  mice 
issue  directly,  by  a  strange  metamorphosis,  from  the 
corpses  of  the  victims.  St.  Gertrude,  moreover,  the 
*  Baring-Gould,  Curious  M)^th.s,  Vol.  II.  p.  159. 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  FOLK-LORE. 


35 


heathen  Holda,  was  symbolized  as  a  mouse,  and  was  said 
CO  lead  an  army  of  mice ;  she  was  the  receiver  of  chil- 
dren's souls.  Odin,  also,  in  his  character  of  a  Psycho- 
pompos,  was  followed  by  a  host  of  rats.* 

As  the  souls  of  the  departed  are  symbolized  as  rats,  so 
IS  the  psychopomp  himself  often  figured  as  a  dog.  Sara- 
meias,  the  Vedic  counterpart  of  Hermes  and  Odin,  some- 
times appears  invested  with  canine  attributes  ;  and  count- 
less other  examples  go  to  show  that  by  the  early  Aryan 
mind  the  howling  wind  was  conceived  as  a  great  dog  or 
wolf.  As  the  fearful  beast  was  heard  speeding  by  the 
windows  or  over  the  house-top,  the  inmates  trembled,  for 
none  knew  but  his  own  soul  might  forthwith  be  required 
of  him.  Hence,  to  this  day,  among  ignorant  people,  the 
howling  of  a  dog  under  the  window  is  supposed  to  por- 
tend a  death  in  the  family.  It  is  the  fleet  greyhound  of 
Hermes,  come  to  escort  the  soul  to  the  river  Styx.-|* 

But  the  wind-god  is  not  always  so  terrible.  Nothing 
can  be  more  transparent  than  the  phraseology  of  the 
Homeric  Hymn,  in  which  Hermes  is  described  as  acquir- 
ing the  strength  of  a  giant  while  yet  a  babe  in  the  cradle, 
as  sallying  out  and  stealing  the  cattle  (clouds)  of  Apollo, 
and  driving  them  helter-skelter  in  various  directions,  then 
as  crawling  through  the  keyhole,  and  with  a  mocking 
laugh  shrinking  into  his  cradle.  He  is  the  Master  Thief, 
who  can  steal  the  burgomaster's  horse  from  under  him 
and  his  wife's  mantle  from  off  her  back,  the  prototype 
not  only  of  the  crafty  architect  of  Ehampsinitos,  but  even 
of  the  ungrateful  slave  who  robs  Sancho  of  his  mule  in 
the  Sierra  Morena.   He  furnishes  in  part  the  conceptions 

*  Perhaps  we  may  trace  back  to  this  source  the  frantic  terror  which 
Irish  servant-girls  often  manifest  at  sight  of  a  mouse. 

t  In  Persia  a  dog  is  brought  to  the  bedside  of  the  person  who  is 
dying,  in  order  that  the  soul  may  be  sure  of  a  prompt  escort.  The 
same  custom  exists  in  India.    Breal,  Hercule  et  Cacus,  p.  123. 


36 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


of  Boots  and  Eeynard ;  he  is  the  prototype  of  Paul  Pry 
and  peeping  Tom  of  Coventry;  and  in  virtue  of  his 
ability  to  contract  or  expand  himself  at  pleasure,  he  is 
both  the  Devil  in  the  Norse  Tale,*  whom  the  lad  per- 
suades to  enter  a  walnut,  and  the  Arabian  Efreet,  whom 
the  fisherman  releases  from  the  bottle. 

The  very  interesting  series  of  myths  and  popular  super- 
stitions suggested  by  the  storm-cloud  and  the  lightning 
must  be  reserved  for  a  future  occasion.  When  carefully 
examined,  they  will  richly  illustrate  the  conclusion  which 
is  the  result  of  the  present  inquiry,  that  the  marvellous 
tales  and  quaint  superstitions  current  in  every  Aryan 
household  have  a  common  origin  with  the  classic  legends 
of  gods  and  heroes,  which  formerly  were  alone  thought 
worthy  of  the  student's  serious  attention.  These  stories 
—  some  of  them  familiar  to  us  in  infancy,  others  the 
delight  of  our  maturer  years  —  constitute  the  debris,  or 
alluvium,  brought  down  by  the  stream  of  tradition  from 
the  distant  highlands  of  ancient  mythology. 

*  The  Devil,  who  is  proverbially  "  active  in  a  gale  of  wind,"  is  none 
other  than  Hermes. 

September,  1870. 


TEE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE, 


37 


n. 

THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 

IN"  the  course  of  my  last  summer's  vacation,  which  was 
spent  at  a  small  inland  village,  I  came  upon  an  un- 
expected illustration  of  the  tenacity  with  which  con- 
ceptions descended  from  prehistoric  antiquity  have 
now  and  then  kept  their  hold  upon  life.  While  sit- 
ting one  evening  under  the  trees  by  the  roadside,  my 
attention  was  called  to  the  unusual  conduct  of  half  a 
dozen  men  and  boys  who  were  standing  opposite.  An 
elderly  man  was  moving  slowly  up  and  down  the  road, 
holding  with  both  hands  a  forked  twig  of  hazel,  shaped 
like  the  letter  Y  inverted.  With  his  palms  turned  up- 
ward, he  held  in  each  hand  a  branch  of  the  twig  in  such 
a  way  that  the  shank  pointed  upward ;  but  every  few 
moments,  as  he  halted  over  a  certain  spot,  the  twig  would 
gradually  bend  downwards  until  it  had  assumed  the  like- 
ness of  a  Y  in  its  natural  position,  Avhere  it  would  remain 
pointing  to  something  in  the  ground  beneath.  One  by 
one  the  bystanders  proceeded  to  try  the  experiment,  but 
with  no  variation  in  the  result.  Something  in  the  ground 
seemed  to  fascinate  the  bit  of  hazel,  for  it  could  not  pass 
over  that  spot  without  bending  down  and  pointing  to  it. 

My  thoughts  reverted  at  once  to  Jacques  Aymar  and 
Bousterswivel,  as  I  perceived  that  these  men  were 
engaged  in  sorcery.  During  the  long  drought  more  than 
half  the  wells  in  the  village  had  become  dry,  and  here 
was  an  attempt  to  make  good  the  loss  by  the  aid  of  the 


3S 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


god  Thor.  These  men  were  seeking  water  with  a  divin- 
ing-rod. Here,  alive  before  my  eyes,  was  a  superstitious 
observance,  which  I  had  supposed  long  since  dead  and 
forgotten  by  all  men  except  students  interested  in  my- 
thology. 

As  I  crossed  the  road  to  take  part  in  the  ceremony  a 
farmer's  boy  came  up,  stoutly  affirming  his  incredulity, 


and  offering  to  show  the  company  how  he  could  carry 
the  rod  motionless  across  the  charmed  spot.  But  when 
he  came  to  take  the  weird  twig  he  trembled  with  an  ill- 
defined  feeling  of  insecurity  as  to  the  soundness  of  his 
conclusions,  and  when  he  stood  over  the  supposed  rivulet 
the  rod  bent  in  spite  of  him,  —  as  was  not  so  very  strange. 
For,  with  all  his  vague  scepticism,  the  honest  lad  had  not, 
and  could  not  be  supposed  to  have,  the  foi  scientijique  of 
which  Littr^  speaks.* 

*  II  faut  que  la  coeur  devienne  ancien  parmi  les  anciennes  choses, 
et  la  plenitude  de  I'histoire  ne  se  devoile  qu'a  celui  qui  descend,  ainsi 
dispose,  dans  le  passe.  Mais  il  faut  que  I'esprit  demeuie  moderne,  et 
n'oublie  jamais  qu'il  n'y  a  pour  lui  d'autre  foi  que  la  foi  scientifique.' 
—  LlTTR^ . 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 


39 


Hereupon  I  requested  leave  to  try  the  rod ;  but  some- 
thing in  my  manner  seemed  at  once  to  excite  the  suspi- 
cion and  scorn  of  the  sorcerer.  "  Yes,  take  it,"  said  he, 
with  uncalled-for  vehemence,  "but  you  can't  stop  it; 
there 's  water  beloAv  here,  and  you  can't  help  its  bending, 
if  you  break  your  back  trying  to  hold  it."  So  he  gave 
me  the  twig,  and  awaited,  with  a  smile  which  was  meant 
to  express  withering  sarcasm,  the  discomfiture  of  the  sup- 
posed scoffer.  But  when  I  proceeded  to  walk  four  or 
five  times  across  the  mysterious  place,  the  rod  pointing 
steadfastly  toward  the  zenith  all  the  while,  our  friend 
became  grave  and  began  to  philosophize.  "  Well,"  said 
he,  "  you  see,  your  temperament  is  peculiar ;  the  condi- 
tions ain't  favourable  in  your  case  ;  there  are  some  people 
who  never  can  work  these  things.  But  there 's  water 
below  here,  for  all  that,  as  you  '11  find,  if  you  dig  for  it ; 
there 's  nothing  like  a  hazel-rod  for  finding  out  water." 

Very  true  :  there  are  some  persons  who  never  can  make 
such  things  work ;  who  somehow  always  encounter  "  un- 
favourable conditions  "  when  they  wish  to  test  the  mar- 
vellous powers  of  a  clairvoyant;  who  never  can  make 
"  Planchette  "  move  in  conformity  to  the  requirements  of 
any  known  alphabet ;  who  never  see  ghosts,  and  never 
have  "  presentiments,"  save  such  as  are  obviously  due  to 
association  of  ideas.  The  ill-success  of  these  persons  is 
commonly  ascribed  to  their  lack  of  faith;  but,  in  the  major- 
ity of  cases,  it  might  be  more  truly  referred  to  the  strength 
of  their  faith,  —  faith  in  the  constancy  of  nature,  and  in 
the  adequacy  of  ordinary  human  experience  as  inter- 
preted by  science.*  La  foi  scientifiqice  is  an  excellent 
preventive  against  that  obscure,  though  not  uncommon, 

*  For  an  admirable  example  of  scientific  self-analysis  tracing  one  of 
these  illusions  to  its  psychological  sources,  see  the  account  of  Dr.  Laza- 
rus, in  Taine,  De  I'lntelligence,  Vol.  I.  pp.  121  - 125. 


40 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


kind  of  self-deception  which  enables  wooden  tripods  to 
write  and  tables  to  tip  and  hazel-twigs  to  twist  upside- 
down,  without  the  conscious  intervention  of  the  per- 
former. It  was  this  kind  of  faith,  no  doubt,  which  caused 
the  discomfiture  of  J acques  Aymar  on  his  visit  to  Paris,* 
and  which  has  in  late  years  prevented  persons  from  ob- 
taining the  handsome  prize  offered  by  the  French  Acad- 
emy for  the  first  authentic  case  of  clairvoyance. 

But  our  village  friend,  though  perhaps  constructively 
right  in  his  philosophizing,  was  certainly  very  defective 
in  his  acquaintance  with  the  time-honoured  art  of  rhab- 
domancy.  Had  he  extended  his  inquiries  so  as  to  cover 
the  field  of  Indo-European  tradition,  he  would  have 
learned  that  the  mountain-ash,  the  mistletoe,  the  white 
and  black  thorn,  the  Hindu  asvattha,  and  several  other 
woods,  are  quite  as  efficient  as  the  hazel  for  the  purpose 
of  detecting  water  in  times  of  drought ;  and  in  due  course 
of  time  he  would  have  perceived  that  the  divining-rod 
itself  is  but  one  among  a  large  class  of  things  to  which 
popular  belief  has  ascribed,  along  with  other  talismanic 
properties,  the  power  of  opening  the  ground  or  cleaving 
rocks,  in  order  to  reveal  hidden  treasures.  Leaving  him 
in  peace,  then,  with  his  bit  of  forked  hazel,  to  seek  for 
cooling  springs  in  some  future  thirsty  season,  let  us  en- 
deavour to  elucidate  the  origin  of  this  curious  supersti- 
tion. 

The  detection  of  subterranean  water  is  by  no  means 
the  only  use  to  which  the  divining-rod  has  been  put. 
Among  the  ancient  Frisians  it  was  regularly  used  for  the 
detection  of  criminals ;  and  the  reputation  of  Jacques 

*  See  the  story  of  Aymar  in  Baring- Gould,  Curious  Myths,  Vol.  I. 
pp.  57-77.  The  learned  author  attributes  the  discomfiture  to  the  un- 
congenial Parisian  environment ;  which  is  a  style  of  reasoning  much  like 
that  of  my  village  sorcerer,  I  fear. 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 


41 


Aymar  was  won  by  his  discovery  of  the  perpetrator  of  a 
horrible  murder  at  Lyons.  Throughout  Europe  it  has 
been  used  from  time  immemorial  by  miners  for  ascertain- 
ing the  position  of  veins  of  metal ;  and  in  the  days  when 
talents  were  wrapped  in  napkins  and  buried  in  the  field, 
instead  of  being  exposed  to  the  risks  of  financial  specula- 
tion, tlie  divining-rod  was  employed  by  persons  covetous 
of  their  neighbours'  wealth.  If  Boulatruelle  had  lived 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  he  would  have  taken  a  forked 
stick  of  hazel  when  he  went  to  search  for  the  buried 
treasures  of  Jean  Valjean.  It  has  also  been  applied  to 
the  cure  of  disease,  and  has  been  kept  in  households,  like 
a  wizard's  charm,  to  insure  general  good-fortune  and  im- 
munity from  disaster. 

As  we  follow  the  conception  further  into  the  elf-land 
of  popular  tradition,  we  come  upon  a  rod  which  not  only 
points  out  the  situation  of  hidden  treasure,  but  even  spHts 
open  the  ground  and  reveals  the  mineral  wealth  contained 
therein.  In  German  legend,  "  a  shepherd,  who  was  driv- 
ing his  flock  over  the  Ilsenstein,  having  stopped  to  rest, 
leaning  on  his  staff,  the  mountain  suddenly  opened,  for 
there  was  a  springwort  in  his  staff  without  his  knowing 
it,  and  the  princess  [Use]  stood  before  him.  She  bade 
him  follow  her,  and  when  he  was  inside  the  mountain 
she  told  him  to  take  as  much  gold  as  he  pleased.  The 
shepherd  filled  all  his  pockets,  and  was  going  away,  when 
the  princess  called  after  him,  *  Forget  not  the  best.'  So, 
thinking  she  meant  that  he  had  not  taken  enough,  he 
filled  his  hat  also ;  but  what  she  meant  was  his  staff  with 
the  springwort,  which  he  had  laid  against  the  waU  as 
soon  as  he  stepped  in.  But  now,  just  as  he  was  going 
out  at  the  opening,  the  rock  suddenly  slammed  together 
and  cut  him  in  two."  * 

*  Kelly,  Indo-European  Folk-Lore,  p.  177. 


4? 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


Here  the  rod  derives  its  marvellous  properties  from  the 
enclosed  springwort,  but  in  many  cases  a  leaf  or  flower 
is  itself  competent  to  open  the  hillside.  The  little  blue 
flower,  forget-me-not,  about  which  so  many  sentimental 
associations  have  clustered,  owes  its  name  to  the  legends 
told  of  its  tahsmanic  virtues.-t"  A  man,  travelling  on  a 
lonely  mountain,  picks  up  a  little  blue  flower  and  sticks 
it  in  his  hat.  Forthwith  an  iron  door  opens,  showing  up 
a  lighted  passage-way,  through  which  the  man  advances 
into  a  magnificent  hall,  where  rubies  and  diamonds  and 
all  other  kinds  of  gems  are  lying  piled  in  great  heaps  on 
the  floor.  As  he  eagerly  fills  his  pockets  his  hat  drops 
from  his  head,  and  when  he  turns  to  go  out  the  little 
flower  calls  after  him,  "  Forget  me  not ! "  He  turns  back 
and  looks  around,  but  is  too  bewildered  with  his  good 
fortune  to  think  of  his  bare  head  or  of  the  luck-flower 
which  he  has  let  fall.  He  selects  several  more  of  the 
finest  jewels  he  can  find,  and  again  starts  to  go  out ;  but 
as  he  passes  through  the  door  the  mountain  closes  amid 
the  crashing  of  thunder,  and  cuts  off  one  of  his  heels. 
Alone,  in  the  gloom  of  the  forest,  he  searches  in  vain  for 
the  mysterious  door :  it  has  disappeared  forever,  and  the 
traveller  goes  on  his  way,  thankful,  let  us  hope,  that  he 
has  fared  no  worse. 

Sometimes  it  is  a  white  lady,  like  the  Princess  Use, 
who  invites  the  finder  of  the  luck-  flower  to  help  himself 
to  her  treasures,  and  who  utters  the  enigmatical  warning. 
The  mountain  where  the  event  occurred  may  be  found 
almost  anywhere  in  Germany,  and  one  just  like  it  stood 
in  Persia,  in  the  golden  prime  of  Karoun  Airaschid.  In 
the  story  of  the  Forty  Thieves,  the  mere  name  of  the 
plant  sesame  serves  as  a  talisman  to  open  and  shut  the 

t  The  story  of  the  luck-flower  is  -well  told  in  verse  by  Mr.  Bp^^ing- 
Gould,  in  his  Silver  Store,  p.  115,  s<2£. 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 


43 


secret  door  which  leads  into  the  robbers'  cavern;  and 
when  the  avaricious  Cassim  Baba,  absorbed  in  the  con- 
templation of  the  bags  of  gold  and  bales  of  rich  merchan- 
dise, forgets  the  magic  formula,  he  meets  no  better  fate 
than  the  shepherd  of  the  Ilsenstein.  In  the  story  of 
Prince  Ahmed,  it  is  an  enchanted  arrow  which  guides 
the  young  adventurer  through  the  hillside  to  the  gi^otto 
of  the  Peri  Banou.  In  the  tale  of  Baba  Abdallah,  it  is  an 
ointment  rubbed  on  the  eyelid  wliich  reveals  at  a  single 
glance  all  the  treasures  hidden  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth. 

The  ancient  Ptomans  also  had  their  rock-breaking  plant, 
called  Saxifraga,  or  "sassafras."  And  the  further  we 
penetrate  into  this  charmed  circle  of  traditions  the  more 
evident  does  it  appear  that  the  power  of  cleaving  rocks 
or  shattering  hard  substances  enters,  as  a  primitive  ele- 
ment, into  the  conception  of  these  treasure-showing  talis- 
mans. Mr.  Baring-Gould  has  given  an  excellent  account 
of  the  rabbinical  legends  concerning  the  wonderful  scha- 
mir,  by  the  aid  of  which  Solomon  was  said  to  have  built 
his  temple.  From  Asmodeus,  prince  of  the  Jann,  Bena- 
iah,  the  son  of  Jehoiada,  wrested  the  secret  of  a  worm  no 
bigger  than  a  barley-corn,  which  could  split  the  hardest 
substance.  This  worm  was  called  schamir.  "  If  Solomon 
desired  to  possess  himself  of  the  worm,  he  must  find  the 
nest  of  the  moor-hen,  and  cover  it  with  a  plate  of  glass, 
so  that  the  mother  bird  could  not  get  at  her  young  with- 
out breaking  the  glass.  She  would  seek  schamir  for  the 
purpose,  and  the  worm  must  be  obtained  from  her."  As 
the  Jewish  king  did  need  the  worm  in  order  to  hew  the 
stones  for  that  temple  which  was  to  be  built  without 
sound  of  hammer,  or  axe,  or  any  tool  of  iron,*  he  sent 
Benaiah  to  obtain  it.  According  to  another  account, 
schamir  was  a  mystic  stone  which  enabled  Solomon  to 

*  1  Kings  vi.  7. 


44 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS, 


penetrate  the  earth  in  search  of  mineral  wealth.  Di- 
rected by  a  Jinni,  the  wise  king  covered  a  raven's  eggs 
with  a  plate  of  crystal,  and  thus  obtained  schamir  which 
the  bird  brought  in  order  to  break  the  plate.* 

In  these  traditions,  which  may  possibly  be  of  Aryan 
descent,  due  to  the  prolonged  intercourse  between  the 
Jews  and  the  Persians,  a  new  feature  is  added  to  those 
before  enumerated  :  the  rock-splitting  talisman  is  always 
found  in  the  possession  of  a  bird.  The  same  feature  in 
the  myth  .reappears  on  Aryan  soil.  The  springwort, 
whose  marvellous  powers  we  have  noticed  in  the  case  of 
the  Ilsenstein  shepherd,  is  obtained,  according  to  Pliny, 
by  stopping  up  the  hole  in  a  tree  where  a  woodpecker 
keeps  its  young.  The  bird  flies  away,  and  presently  re- 
turns with  the  springwort,  which  it  applies  to  the  plug, 
causing  it  to  shoot  out  with  a  loud  explosion.  The  same 
account  is  given  in  German  folk-lore.  Elsewhere,  as  in 
Iceland,  Normandy,  and  ancient  Greece,  the  bird  is  an 
eagle,  a  swallow,  an  ostrich,  or  a  hoopoe. 

In  the  Icelandic  and  Pomeranian  myths  the  schamir, 
or  "  raven-stone,"  also  renders  its  possessor  invisible,  — 
a  property  which  it  shares  with  one  of  the  treasure-find- 
ing plants,  the  fern.-|-  In  this  respect  it  resembles  the 
ring  of  Gyges,  as  in  its  divining  and  rock-splitting  quali- 
ties it  resembles  that  other  ring  which  the  African  magi- 

*  Compare  the  Mussulman  account  of  the  building  of  the  temple,  in 
Baring-Gould,  Legends  of  the  Patriarchs  and  Prophets,  pp.  337,  338. 
And  see  the  story  of  Diocletian's  ostrich.  Swan,  Gesta  Romanorum,  ed. 
Wright,  Vol.  I.  p.  Ixiv.  See  also  the  pretty  story  of  the  knight  un- 
justly imprisoned,  id.  p.  cii. 

+  **  We  have  the  receipt  of  fern-seed.  We  walk  invisible."  — 
Shakespeare,  Henry  IV.  See  Ralston,  Songs  of  the  Russian  People, 
p.  98. 

According  to  one  North  German  tradition,  the  luck-flower  also  will 
make  its  finder  invisible  at  pleasure.  But,  as  the  myth  shrewdly  adds, 
it  is  absolutely  essential  that  the  flower  be  found  by  accident :  he  who 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 


45 


cian  gave  to  Aladdin,  to  enable  him  to  descend  into  the 
cavern  where  stood  the  wonderful  lamp. 

In  the  North  of  Europe  schamir  appears  strangely  and 
grotesquely  metamorphosed.  The  hand  of  a  man  that 
has  been  hanged,  when  dried  and  prepared  with  certain 
weird  unguents  and  set  on  fire,  is  known  as  the  Hand 
of  Glory ;  and  as  it  not  only  bursts  open  all  safe-locks, 
but  also  lulls  to  sleep  all  persons  within  the  circle  of  its 
influence,  it  is  of  course  invaluable  to  thieves  and  burg- 
lars. I  quote  the  following  story  from  Thorpe's  "  North- 
ern Mythology  "  :  "  Two  fellows  once  came  to  Huy,  who 
pretended  to  be  exceedingly  fatigued,  and  when  they  had 
supped  would  not  retire  to  a  sleeping-room,  but  begged 
their  host  would  allow  them  to  take  a  nap  on  the  hearth. 
But  the  maid-servant,  who  did  not  like  the  looks  of  the 
two  guests,  remained  by  the  kitchen  door  and  peeped 
througli  a  chink,  when  she  saw  that  one  of  them  drew  a 
thief's  hand  from  his  pocket,  the  lingers  of  which,  after 
having  rubbed  them  with  an  ointment,  he  lighted,  and 
they  all  burned  except  one.  Again  they  held  tliis  finger 
to  the  fire,  but  still  it  would  not  burn,  at  which  they 
appeared  much  surprised,  and  one  said,  'There  must 
surely  be  some  one  in  the  house  who  is  not  yet  asleep.' 
They  then  hung  the  hand  with  its  four  burning  fingers  by 
the  chimney,  and  went  out  to  call  their  associates.  But 
the  maid  followed  them  instantly  and  made  the  door 
fast,  then  ran  up  stairs,  where  the  landlord  slept,  that 
she  might  wake  him,  but  was  unable,  notwithstanding 
all  her  sliaking  and  calling.  In  the  mean  time  the 
thieves  had  returned  and  were  endeavouring  to  enter  the 

seeks  for  it  never  finds  it !  Thus  all  cavils  are  skilfully  forestalled,  even 
if  not  satisfactorily  disposed  of.  The  same  kind  of  reasoning  is  favoured 
by  our  modern  dealers  in  mystery  :  somehow  the  "  conditions  "  always 
are  askew  whenever  a  scientific  observer  wishes  to  test  their  pretensiona 


46 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


house  by  a  window,  but  the  maid  cast  them  down  from 
the  ladder.  They  then  took  a  different  course,  and  would 
have  forced  an  entrance,  had  it  not  occurred  to  the  maid 
that  tlie  burning  hngers  might  probably  be  the  cause  of 
her  master's  profound  sleep.  Impressed  with  this  idea 
she  ran  to  the  kitchen  and  blew  them  out,  when  the 
master  and  his  men-servants  instantly  awoke,  and  soon 
drove  away  the  robbers."  The  same  event  is  said  to  have 
occurred  at  Stainmore  in  England ;  and  Torquemada  re- 
lates of  Mexican  thieves  that  they  carry  with  them  the 
left  hand  of  a  woman  who  has  died  in  her  first  childbed, 
before  which  talisman  all  bolts  yield  and  all  opposition 
is  benumbed.  In  1831  "  some  Irish  thieves  attempted  to 
ccnmiit  a  robbery  on  the  estate  of  Mr.  ISTaper,  of  Lough- 
crew,  county  Meath.  They  entered  the  house  armed 
with  a  dead  man's  hand  with  a  lighted  candle  in  it, 
believing  in  the  superstitious  notion  that  a  candle  placed 
in  a  dead  man's  hand  will  not  be  seen  by  any  but  those 
by  whom  it  is  used ;  and  also  that  if  a  candle  in  a  dead 
hand  be  introduced  into  a  house,  it  will  prevent  those 
who  may  be  asleep  from  awaking.  The  inmates,  how- 
ever, were  alarmed,  and  the  robbers  fled,  leaving  the  hand 
behind  them."  * 

In  the  Middle  Ages  the  hand  of  glory  was  used,  just 
like  the  divining-rod,  for  the  detection  of  buried  treasures. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  large  and  motley  group  of 
objects  —  the  forked  rod  of  ash  or  hazel,  the  springwort 
and  the  luck-flower,  leaves,  worms,  stones,  rings,  and 
dead  men's  hands  —  which  are  for  the  most  part  compe- 
tent to  open  the  way  into  cavernous  rocks,  and  which 
all  agree  in  pointing  out  hidden  wealth.  We  find,  more- 
over, that  many  of  these  charmed  objects  are  carried 
about  by  birds,  and  that  some  of  them  possess,  in  addi- 

*  Henderson,  Folk-Lore  of  the  Northern  Counties  of  England,  p.  202. 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 


47 


tion  to  their  generic  properties,  the  specific  power  of 
benumbing  people's  senses.  What,  now,  is  the  common 
origin  of  this  whole  group  of  superstitions  ?  And  since 
mythology  has  been  shown  to  be  the  result  of  primeval 
attempts  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  nature,  what  natu- 
ral phenomenon  could  ever  have  given  rise  to  so  many 
seemingly  wanton  conceptions  ?  Hopeless  as  the  prob- 
lem may  at  first  sight  seem,  it  has  nevertheless  been 
solved.  In  his  great  treatise  on  "  The  Descent  of  Fire," 
Dr.  Kuhn  has  shown  that  all  these  legends  and  traditions 
are  descended  from  primitive  myths  explanatory  of  the 
li«htnin£f  and  the  storm-cloud.* 

To  us,  who  are  nourished  from  childhood  on  the  truths 
revealed  by  science,  the  sky  is  known  to  be  merely  an 
optical  appearance  due  to  the  partial  absorption  of  the 
solar  rays  in  parsing  through  a  thick  stratum  of  atmos- 
pheric air ;  the  clouds  are  known  to  be  large  masses  of 
watery  vapour,  which  descend  in  rain-drops  when  suffi- 
ciently condensed  ;  and  the  lightning  is  known  to  be  a 
flash  of  light  accompanying  an  electric  discharge.  But 
these  conceptions  are  extremely  recondite,  and  have  been 
attained  only  through  centuries  of  philosophizing  and 
after  careful  observation  and  laborious  experiment.  To 
the  untaught  mind  of  a  child  or  of  an  uncivilized  man,  it 
eeems  far  more  natural  and  plausible  to  regard  the  sky  as 
a  solid  dome  of  blue  crystal,  the  clouds  as  snowy  moun- 
tains, or  perhaps  even  as  giants  or  angels,  the  liglitniug 
as  a  flashing  dart  or  a  fiery  serpent.  In  point  of  fact, 
we  find  that  the  conceptions  actually  entertained  are 
often  far  more  grotesque  tlian  these.  I  can  recollect  once 
framing  the  b.ypothesis  that  the  flaming  clouds  of  sunset 
were  transient  apparitions,  vouciisafed  us  by  way  of  warn- 

*  Kuhu,  Die  Herabkuuft  des  Feuers  und  des  Gottertrauk.s.  Berlin, 
1859. 


48 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


ing,  of  that  burning  Calvinistic  hell  with  which  my 
childish  imagination  had  been  unwisely  terrified  ;  *  and  I 
have  known  of  a  four-year-old  boy  who  thought  that  the 
snowy  clouds  of  noonday  were  the  white  robes  of  the 
angels  hung  out  to  dry  in  the  sun.-f-  My  little  daaghter 
is  anxious  to  know  whether  it  is  necessary  to  take  a  bal- 
loon in  order  to  get  to  the  place  where  God  lives,  or 
whether  the  same  end  can  be  accomplished  by  going  to 
the  horizon  and  crawling  up  the  sky ;  \  the  Mohamme- 
dan of  old  was  working  at  the  same  problem  when  he 
called  the  rainbow  the  bridge  Es-Sirat,  over  which  souls 
must  pass  on  their  way  to  heaven.  According  to  the 
ancient  Jew,  the  sky  was  a  sohd  plate,  hammered  out  by 
the  gods,  and  spread  over  the  earth  in  order  to  keep  up 
the  ocean  overhead ;  §  but  the  plate  was  full  of  little 
windows,  which  were  opened  whenever  it  became  neces- 
sary to  let  the  rain  come  through.  ||  With  equal  plausi- 
bility the  Greek  represented  the  rainy  sky  as  a  sieve  in 
which  the  daughters  of  Danaos  were  vainly  trying  to  draw 

*  **  Saga  me  forwhan  byth  seo  sunne  read  on  sefen  ?  Ic  the  secge, 
forthon  heo  locath  on  helle.  —  Tell  me,  why  is  the  sun  red  at  even  ? 
I  tell  thee,  because  she  looketh  on  hell."  Thorpe,  Analecta  Anglo- 
Saxonica,  p.  115,  apud  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  Yol.  II.  p.  63.  Bar- 
baric thought  had  partly  anticipated  my  childish  theory. 

t  '*  Still  in  North  Germany  does  the  peasant  say  of  thunder,  that  the 
angels  are  playing  skittles  aloft,  and  of  the  snow,  that  they  are  shaking 
up  the  feather-beds  in  heaven."  —  Baring-Gould,  Book  of  Werewolves, 
p.  172. 

X  *' The  Polynesians  imagine  that  the  sky  descends  at  the  horizon 
and  encloses  the  earth.  Hence  they  call  foreigners  papalangi,  or  '  heav- 
en-bursters,' as  having  broken  in  from  another  world  outside."  —  Max 
Miiller,  Chips,  II.  268. 

§  *' Way-yo'hmer  'helohim  y'hi  raquia^h  b*-thok  ham-mayim  Avihi 
mavdil  beyn  mayim  la-mayim.  —  And  said  the  gods,  let  there  be  a  ham- 
mered plate  in  the  midst  of  the  waters,  and  let  it  be  dividing  between 
waters  and  waters,"    Genesis  i.  6. 

II  Genesis  vii.  11. 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIJiE, 


49 


water ;  while  to  the  Hindu  the  rain-clouds  were  celestial 
cattle  milked  by  the  wind-god.  In  primitive  Aryan  lore, 
the  sky  itself  was  a  blue  sea,  and  the  clouds  were  ships  sail- 
ing over  it ;  and  an  English  legend  tells  how  one  of  these 
ships  once  caught  its  anchor  on  a  gravestone  in  the 
churchyard,  to  the  gTeat  astonishment  of  the  j)eople  who 
were  coming  out  of  church.  Charon's  ferry-boat  was  one 
of  these  vessels,  and  another  was  Odin's  golden  ship,  in 
which  the  souls  of  slain  heroes  were  conveyed  to  Val- 
halla. Hence  it  was  once  the  Scandinavian  practice  to 
bury  the  dead  in  boats  ;  and  in  Altmark  a  penny  is  still 
placed  in  the  mouth  of  the  corpse,  that  it  may  have  the 
means  of  paying  its  fare  to  the  ghostly  ferryman.*  In 
such  a  vessel  drifted  the  Lady  of  Shalott  on  her  fatal 
voyage ;  and  of  similar  nature  was  the  dusky  barge, 
"  dark  as  a  funeral-scarf  from  stem  to  stern,"  in  which 
Arthur  was  received  by  the  black-hooded  queens.f 

But  the  fact  that  a  natural  phenomenon  was  explained 
in  one  way  did  not  hinder  it  from  being  explained  in  a 
dozen  other  ways.  The  fact  that  the  sun  was  generally 
regarded  as  an  all-conquering  hero  did  not  prevent  its 

*  See  Kelly,  Indo-European  Folk-Lore,  p.  120  ;  who  states  also  that 
in  Bengal  the  Garrows  burn  their  dead  in  a  small  boat,  placed  on  top  of 
the  funeral-pile. 

In  tlieir  character  of  cows,  also,  the  clouds  were  regarded  as  ps5^cho- 
ponips  ;  and  hence  it  is  still  a  popular  superstition  that  a  cow  breaking 
into  the  yard  foretokens  a  death  in  the  family. 

+  The  sun-god  Freyr  had  a  cloud-ship  called  Skithblathnir,  which 
is  thus  described  in  Dasent's  Prose  Edda  :  "  She  is  so  great,  that  all  the 
iEsir,  with  their  weapons  and  war-gear,  may  find  room  on  board  her "  ; 
but  "when  there  is  no  need  of  faring  on  the  sea  in  her,  she  is  made  .... 
with  so  much  craft  that  Fi-eyr  may  fold  her  together  like  a  cloth,  and 
keep  her  in  his  bag."  This  same  virtue  was  possessed  by  the  fairy 
pavilion  Avhich  the  Peri  Banou  gave  to  Ahmed  ;  the  cloud  which  is  no 
bigger  than  a  man's  hand  may  soon  overspread  the  whole  heaven,  and 
shade  the  Sultan's  army  from  the  solar  rays. 

8  D 


50 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


being  called  an  egg,  an  apple,  or  a  frog  squatting  on  the 
waters,  or  Ixion's  wheel,  or  the  eye  of  Polyphemos,  or 
the  stone  of  Sisyphos,  v/hich  was  no  sooner  pushed  up  to 
the  zenith  than  it  rolled  down  to  the  horizon.  So  the 
sky  was  not  only  a  crystal  dome,  or  a  celestial  ocean,  but 
it  was  also  the  Aleian  land  through  which  Bellerophon 
wandered,  the  country  of  the  Lotos-eaters,  or  again  the 
realm  of  the  Graiai  beyond  the  twilight ;  and  finally  it 
was  personified  and  worshipped  as  Dyaus  or  A^aruna, 
the  Vedic  prototypes  of  the  Greek  Zeus  and  Ouranos. 
The  clouds,  too,  had  many  other  representatives  besides 
ships  and  cows.  In  a  future  paper  it  will  te  shown  that 
they  were  sometimes  regarded  as  angels  or  houris  ;  at 
present  it  more  nearly  concerns  us  to  know  that  they 
appear,  throughout  all  Aryan  mythology,  under  the  form 
of  birds.  It  used  to  be  a  matter  of  hopeless  wonder  to 
me  that  Aladdin's  innocent  request  for  a  roc's  egg  to 
hang  in  the  dome  of  his  palace  sliould  have  been  re- 
garded as  a  crime  worthy  of  punishment  by  the  loss  of 
the  wonderful  lamp  ;  the  obscurest  part  of  the  whole 
affair  being  perhaps  the  Jinni's  passionate  allusion  to  the 
egg  as  his  master :  "  Wretch  !  dost  thou  command  me  to 
bring  thee  my  master,  and  hang  him  up  in  the  midst  of 
this  vaulted  dome  ?  "  But  the  incident  is  to  some  extent 
cleared  of  its  mystery  when  we  learn  that  the  roc's  egg  is 
the  bright  sun,  and  that  the  roc  itself  is  the  rushing  storm- 
cloud  which,  in  the  tale  of  Sindbad,  haunts  the  sparkling 
starry  firmament,  symbolized  as  a  valley  of  diamonds.* 

*  EuhemensTn  has  done  its  best  with  this  bird,  representing  it  as  an 
immense  vulture  or  condor  or  as  a  reminiscence  of  the  extinct  dodo. 
But  a  Chinese  myth,  cited  by  Klaproth,  well  preserves  its  true  character 
when  it  describes  it  as  "a  bird  which  in  flying  obscures  the  sun,  and  of 
whose  quills  are  made  water-tuns."  See  Nouveau  Journal  Asiatique, 
Tom.  XII.  p.  235.  The  big  bird  in  the  Norse  tale  of  the  "  Blue  Belt " 
belongs  to  the  same  species. 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 


51 


According  to  one  Arabic  authority,  the  length  of  its  wings 
is  ten  thousand  fathoms.  But  in  European  tradition  it 
dwindles  from  these  huge  dimensions  to  the  size  of  an  ea- 
gle, a  raven,  or  a  woodpecker.  Among  the  birds  enumera- 
ted by  Kuhn  and  others  as  representing  the  storm-cloud 
are  likewise  the  wren  or  "  kinglet "  (French  roiteld)  ;  the 
owl,  sacred  to  Athene ;  the  cuckoo,  stork,  and  sparrow  ; 
and  the  red-breasted  robin,  wliose  name  Robert  was 
originally  an  epithet  of  the  lightning-god  Thor.  In  cer- 
tain parts  of  France  it  is  still  believed  that  the  robbing 
of  a  wren's  nest  will  render  the  culprit  liable  to  be  struck 
by  lightning.  The  same  belief  was  formerly  entertained 
in  Teutonic  countries  with  respect  to  the  robin ;  and  i 
suppose  that  from  this  superstition  is  descended  the  prev- 
alent notion,  which  I  often  encountered  in  childhood, 
that  there  is  something  peculiarly  wicked  in  killing 
robins. 

Now,  as  the  raven  or  woodpecker,  in  the  various  myths 
of  schamir,  is  the  dark  storm-cloud,  so  the  rock-splitting 
worm  or  plant  or  pebble  which  the  bird  carries  in  its 
beak  and  lets  fall  to  the  gi'ound  is  nothing  more  or  less 
than  the  flash  of  lightning  carried  and  dropped  by  the 
cloud.  "  If  the  cloud  was  supposed  to  be  a  great  bird, 
the  lightnings  were  regarded  as  writhing  worms  or  ser- 
pents in  its  beak.  These  fiery  serpents,  eXt/cmt  'ypa/i^ 
/LtoetSw?  (jicpofievoc,  are  believed  in  to  this  day  by  the 
Canadian  Indians,  who  call  the  thunder  their  hissing."* 

But  these  are  not  the  only  mythical  conceptions  which 
are  to  be  found  wrapped  up  in  the  various  myths  of 
schamir  and  the  divining-rod.  The  persons  who  told 
these  stories  were  not  weaving  ingenious  allegories  about 
thunder-storms  ;  they  were  telling  stories,  or  giving  utter- 

*  Baving-Goukl,  Curious  Myths,  Vol.  II.  p.  HQ.  Compare  Tylor, 
Primitive  Culture,  Vol.  II.  p.  237,  seq. 


52 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


ance  to  superstitions,  of  which  the  original  meaning  was 
forgotten.  The  old  grannies  who,  along  with  a  stoical 
indifference  to  the  fate  of  quails  and  partridges,  used  to 
impress  upon  me  the  wickedness  of  killing  robins,  did 
not  add  that  I  should  be  struck  by  lightning  if  I  failed 
to  heed  their  admonitions.  They  had  never  heard  that 
the  robin  was  the  bird  of  Thor ;  they  merely  rehearsed 
the  remnant  of  the  superstition  which  had  survived  to 
their  own  times,  while  the  essential  part  of  it  had  long 
since  faded  from  recollection.  The  reason  for  regarding 
a  robin's  life  as  more  sacred  than  a  partridge's  had  been 
forgotten;  but  it  left  behind,  as  was  natural,  a  vague 
recognition  of  that  mythical  sanctity.  The  primitive 
meaning  of  a  myth  fades  away  as  inevitably  as  the 
primitive  meaning  of  a""  word  or  phrase  ;  and  the  rabbins 
who  told  of  a  worm  which  shatters  rocks  no  more 
thought  of  the  writhing  thunderbolts  than  the  modern 
reader  thinks  of  oyster-shells  when  he  sees  the  word 
ostracis7n,  or  consciously  breathes  a  prayer  as  he  writes 
the  phrase  good  hye.  It  is  only  in  its  callow  infancy  that 
the  full  force  of  a  myth  is  felt,  and  its  period  of  luxuriant 
development  dates  from  the  time  when  its  physical  sig- 
nificance is  lost  or  obscured.  It  w^as  because  the  Greek 
had  forgotten  that  Zeus  meant  the  bright  sky,  that  he 
could  make  him  king  over  an  anthropomorphic  Olympos. 
The  Hindu  Dyaus,  who  carried  his  significance  in  his 
name  as  plainly  as  the  Greek  Helios,  never  attained  such 
an  exalted  position  ;  he  yielded  to  deities  of  less  obvious 
pedigree,  such  as  Brahma  and  Vishnu. 

Since,  therefore,  the  myth-tellers  recounted  merely  the 
wonderful  stories  which  their  own  nurses  and  grandmas 
had  told  them,  and  had  no  intention  of  weaving  subtle 
allegories  or  wrapping  up  a  physical  truth  in  mystic 
emblems,  it  follows  that  they  were  not  bound  to  avoid 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 


53 


incongruities  or  to  preserve  a  philosophical  symmetry  in 
their  narratives.  In  the  great  majority  of  complex 
myths,  no  such  symmetry  is  to  be  found.  A  score  of 
different  mythical  conceptions  would  get  wrought  into 
the  same  story,  and  the  attempt  to  pull  them  apart  and 
construct  a  single  harmonious  system  of  conceptions  out 
of  the  pieces  must  often  end  in  ingenious  absurdity.  If 
Odysseus  is  unquestionably  the  sun,  so  is  the  eye  of 
Polyphemos,  which  Odysseus  puts  out*  But  the  Greek 
poet  knew  nothing  of  the  incongruity,  for  he  was  think- 
ing only  of  a  superhuman  hero  freeing  himself  from  a 
giant  cannibal ;  he  knew  nothing  of  Sanskrit,  or  of 
comparative  mythology,  and  the  sources  of  his  myths 
were  as  completely  hidden  from  his  view  as  the  sources 
of  the  Nile. 

We  need  not  be  surprised,  then,  to  find  that  in  one 
version  of  the  schamir-myth  the  cloud  is  the  bird  which 
carries  the  worm,  wliile  in  another  version  the  cloud  is 
the  rock  or  mountain  which  the  talisman  cleaves  open ; 
nor  need  we  wonder  at  it,  if  we  find  stories  in  which  the 
two  conceptions  are  mingled  together  without  regard  to 
an  incongruity  which  in  the  mind  of  the  myth-teller  no 
longer  exists.f 

In  early  Aryan  mythology  there  is  nothing  by  which 

*  "If  Polyphemos's  eye  be  the  sun,  then  Odysseus,  the  solar  hero, 
extinguishes  himself,  a  very  primitive  instance  of  suicide."  Mahaffy, 
Prolegomena,  p.  57.  See  also  Brown,  Poseidon,  pp.  39,  40.  This 
objection  would  be  relevant  only  in  case  Homer  were  supposed  to  be 
constructing  an  allegory  with  entire  knowledge  of  its  meaning.  It  has 
no  validity  whatever  when  we  recollect  that  Homer  could  have  known 
nothing  of  the  incongruity. 

t  The  Sanskrit  myth-teller  indeed  mixes  up  his  materials  in  a  way 
which  seems  ludicrous  to  a  Western  reader.  He  describes  Indra  (the 
sun-god)  as  not  only  cleaving  the  cloud-mountains  with  his  sword,  but 
also  cutting  off  their  wings  and  hurling  them  from  the  sky.  See  Burnouf, 
Bh^gavata  Purina,  VI.  12,  26. 


$4  MYTHS  AND  MYTE-MAKERS. 

the  clouds  are  more  frequently  represented  than  by  rocks 
or  mountains.  Such  were  the  Syniplegades,  which, 
charmed  by  the  harp  of  the  wind-god  Orpheus,  parted  to 
make  way  for  the  talking  ship  Argo,  with  its  crew  of 
solar  heroes.*  Such,  too,  were  the  mountains  Ossa  and 
Pelion,  which  the  giants  piled  up  one  upon  another  in 
their  impious  assault  upon  Zeus,  the  lord  of  the  briglit 
sky.  As  Mr.  Baring-Gould  observes  :  "  The  ancient  Aryan 
had  the  same  name  for  cloud  and  mountain.  To  him  the 
piles  of  vapour  on  the  horizon  were  so  like  Alpine  ranges, 
that  he  had  but  one  word  whereby  to  designate  both.-f- 
These  great  mountains  of  heaven  were  opened  by  the 
lightning.  In  the  sudden  flash  he  beheld  the  dazzling 
splendour  within,  but  only  for  a  moment,  and  then,  with 
a  crash,  the  celestial  rocks  closed  again.  Believing  these 
vaporous  piles  to  contain  resplendent  treasures  of  which 
partial  glimpse  was  obtained  by  mortals  in  a  momentary 
gleam,  tales  were  speedily  formed,  relating  the  adventures 
of  some  who  had  succeeded  in  entering  these  treasure- 
mountains." 

This  sudden  flash  is  the  smiting  of  the  cloud-rock  by 
the  arrow  of  Ahmed,  the  resistless  hammer  of  Thor,  the 
spear  of  Odin,  the  trident  of  Poseidon,  or  the  rod  of 
Hermes.  The  forked  streak  of  light  is  the  archetype  of 
the  divining-rod  in  its  oldest  form,  —  that  in  which  it 

*  Mr.  Tj-lor  offers  a  different,  and  possibly  a  better,  explanation  of 
the  Symplegades  as  the  gates  of  Night  through  which  the  solar  ship, 
having  passed  successfully  once,  may  henceforth  pass  forever.  See  the 
details  of  the  evidence  in  his  Primitive  Culture,  I.  315. 

t  The  Sanskrit  p^rvata,  a  bulging  or  inflated  body,  means  both 
"cloud"  and  "mountain."  "In  the  Edda,  too,  the  rocks,  said  to 
have  been  fashioned  out  of  Ymir's  bones,  are  supposed  to  be  intended 
for  clouds.  In  Old  Norse  KlaJckr  means  both  cloud  and  rock  ;  nay,  the 
English  word  chud  itself  has  been  identified  with  the  Anglo-Saxon 
dud,  rock.  See  Justi,  Orient  und  Occident,  Vol.  II.  p.  62."  Max 
Miiller,  Rig- Veda,  Vol.  I.  p.  44. 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 


55 


not  only  indicates  the  hidden  treasures,  but,  like  the  staff 
of  the  Ilsenstein  shepherd,  bursts  open  the  enchanted 
crypt  and  reveals  thern  to  the  astonished  wayfarer.  Hence 
the  one  thing  essential  to  the  divining-rod,  from  whatever 
tree  it  be  chosen,  is  that  it  shall  be  forked. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  comprehend  the  reasons  which  led 
the  ancients  to  speak  of  the  lightning  as  a  worm,  serpent, 
trident,  arrow,  or  forked  wand ;  but  when  we  inquire 
wliy  it  was  sometimes  symbolized  as  a  flower  or  leaf,  or 
when  we  seek  to  ascertain  why  certain  trees,  such  as  the 
ash,  hazel,  white-tliorn,  and  mistletoe,  were  supposed  to 
be  in  a  certain  sense  embodiments  of  it,  we  are  entering 
upon  a  subject  too  complicated  to  be  satisfactorily  treated 
witliin  the  limits  of  the  present  paper.  It  has  been  said 
that  the  point  of  resemblance  between  a  cow  and  a 
comet,  that  both  have  tails,  was  quite  enough  for  the 
primitive  word-maker :  it  was  certainly  enough  for  the 
primitive  myth-teller.*  Sometimes  the  pinnate  shape 
of  a  leaf,  the  forking  of  a  branch,  the  tri-cleft  corolla,  or 
even  tlie  red  colour  of  a  flower,  seems  to  have  been 
sufficient  to  determine  the  association  of  ideas.  The 
Hindu  commentators  of  the  Veda  certainly  lay  gi'eat 
stress  on  the  fact  that  the  palasa,  one  of  their  lightning- 
trees,  is  trident-leaved.  The  mistletoe  branch  is  forked, 
like  a  wish-bone,-|*  and  so  is  the  stem  which  bears  the 

*  In  accordance  with  the  medifeval  "doctrine  of  signatures,"  it  was 
maintained  "  that  the  hard,  stony  seeds  of  the  Gromwell  must  be  good 
for  gravel,  and  the  knotty  tubers  of  scro})hulaiia  for  scrofulous  glands  ; 
wiiile  the  scaly  pappus  of  scaliosa  showed  it  to  be  a  specific  in  leprous 
distiases,  the  spotted  leaves  of  pulmonaria  that  it  was  a  sovereign  remedy 
for  tuberculous  lungs,  and  the  growth  of  saxifrage  in  the  fissures  of 
rocks  that  it  would  disintegrate  stone  in  the  bladder."  Prior,  Popular 
Names  of  British  Plants,  Introd.,  p.  xiv.  See  also  Chapiel,  La  Doctrine 
des  Signatures.    Paris,  1866. 

t  Indeed,  the  wish-bone,  or  forked  clavicle  of  a  fowl,  itself  belongs 
to  the  same  family  of  talismans  as  the  divining-rod. 


56 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


forget-me-not  or  wild  scorpion  grass.  So  too  the  leaves 
of  the  Hindu  ficus  religiosa  resemble  long  spear-heads.* 
But  in  many  cases  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  determine 
with  confidence  the  reasons  which  may  have  guided 
primitive  men  in  their  choice  of  talismanic  plants.  In 
the  case  of  some  of  these  stories,  it  would  no  doubt  be 
wasting  ingenuity  to  attempt  to  assign  a  mythical  origin 
for  each  point  of  detail.  The  ointment  of  the  dervise, 
for  instance,  in  the  Arabian  tale,  has  probably  no  special 
mythical  significance,  but  was  rather  suggested  by  the 
exigencies  of  the  story,  in  an  age  when  the  old  mythol- 
ogies were  so  far  disintegrated  and  mingled  together  that 
any  one  talisman  would  serve  as  well  as  another  the 
purposes  of  the  narrator.  But  the  lightning-plants  of 
Indo-European  folk-lore  cannot  be  thus  summarily  dis- 
posed of ;  for  however  difficult  it  may  be  for  us  to  per- 
ceive any  connection  between  them  and  the  celestial 
phenomena  which  they  represent,  the  myths  concerning 
them  are  so  numerous  and  explicit  as  to  render  it  certain 
that  some  such  connection  was  imagined  by  the  myth- 
makers.  The  superstition  concerning  the  hand  of  glory 
is  not  so  hard  to  interpret.  In  the  mythology  of  the 
Finns,  the  storm-cloud  is  a  black  man  with  a  bright 
copper  hand ;  and  in  Hindustan,  Indra  Savitar,  the  deity 
who  slays  the  demon  of  the  cloud,  is  golden-handed. 
The  selection  of  the  hand  of  a  man  who  has  been  hanged 
is  probably  due  to  the  superstition  which  regarded  the 
storm-god  Odin  as  peculiarly  the  lord  of  the  gallows. 

*  The  ash,  on  the  other  hand,  has  been  from  time  immemorial  used 
for  spears  in  many  parts  of  the  Aryan  domain.  The  word  cesc  meant, 
in  Anglo-Saxon,  indifferently  "ash-tree,"  or  "  spear  "  ;  and  the  same  is, 
or  has  been,  true  of  the  French  fresne  and  the  Greek  /xeXla.  The  root 
of  (esc  appears  in  the  Sanskrit  as,  "  to  throw  "  or  "  lance,"  whence  dsa, 
"a,  bow,"  and  asand,  "an  arrow."  See  Pictet,  Origines  Indo-Eura 
peennes,  I.  222. 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 


57 


The  man  who  is  raised  upon  the  gallows  is  placed  directly 
in  the  track  of  the  wild  huntsman,  who  comes  with  his 
hounds  to  carry  off  the  victim ;  and  hence  the  notion, 
which,  according  to  Mr.  Kelly,  is  "very  common  in 
Germany  and  not  extinct  in  England,"  that  every  suicide 
by  hanging  is  followed  by  a  storm. 

The  paths  of  comparative  mythology  are  devious,  but 
we  have  now  pursued  them  long  enough,  I  believe,  to 
have  arrived  at  a  tolerably  clear  understanding  of  the 
original  nature  of  the  divining-rod.  Its  power  of  reveal- 
ing treasures  has  been  sufficiently  explained;  and  its 
afltinity  for  water  results  so  obviously  from  the  character 
of  the  lightning-myth  as  to  need  no  furtlier  comment. 
But  its  power  of  detecting  criminals  still  remains  to  be 
accounted  for. 

In  Greek  mythology,  the  being  which  detects  and  pun- 
ishes crime  is  the  Erinys,  the  prototype  of  the  Latin 
Fury,  figured  by  late  writers  as  a  horrible  monster  with 
serpent  locks.  But  this  is  a  degradation  of  the  original 
conception.  The  name  Erinys  did  not  originally  mean 
Fury,  and  it  cannot  be  explained  from  Greek  sources 
alone.  It  appears  in  Sanskrit  as  Saramju,  a  word  which 
signifies  the  light  of  morning  creeping  over  the  sky. 
And  thus  we  are  led  to  the  startling  conclusion  that,  as 
the  light  of  morning  reveals  the  evil  deeds  done  under 
the  cover  of  night,  so  the  lovely  Dawn,  or  Erinys,  came 
to  be  regarded  under  one  aspect  as  the  terrible  detector 
and  avenger  of  iniquity.  Yet  startling  as  the  conclusion 
is,  it  is  based  on  established  laws  of  phonetic  change,  and 
cannot  be  gainsaid. 

But  what  has  the  avenging  daybreak  to  do  with  the 
lightning  and  the  divining-rod  ?  To  the  modern  mind 
the  association  is  not  an  obvious  one:  in  antiquity  it 
was  otherwise.  Myths  of  the  daybreak  and  myths  of  the 
«• 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


lightning  often  resemble  each  other  so  closely  that,  ex- 
cept by  a  delicate  philological  analysis,  it  is  difficult  to 
distinguish  the  one  from  the  other.  The  reason  is  obvi- 
ous. In  each  case  the  phenomenon  to  be  explained  is 
the  struggle  between  the  day-god  and  one  of  the  demons 
of  darkness.  There  is  essentially  no  distinction  to  the 
mind  of  the  primitive  man  between  the  Panis,  who  steal 
Indra's  bright  cows  and  keep  them  in  a  dark  cavern  all 
night,  and  the  throttling  snake  Ahi  or  Echidna,  who  im- 
prisons the  waters  in  the  stronghold  of  the  thunder-cloud 
and  covers  the  earth  with  a  short-lived  darkness.  And 
60  the  poisoned  arrows  of  Bellerophon,  which  slay  the 
storm-dragon,  differ  in  no  essential  respect  from  the 
shafts  with  which  Odysseus  slaughters  the  night-demons 
who  have  for  ten  long  hours  beset  his  mansion.  Thus 
the  divining-rod,  representing  as  it  does  the  weapon  of 
the  god  of  day,  comes  legitimately  enough  by  its  func- 
tion of  detecting  and  avenging  crime. 

But  the  lightning  not  only  reveals  strange  treasures 
and  gives  water  to  the  thirsty  land  and  makes  plain  what 
is  doing  under  cover  of  darkness ;  it  also  sometimes  kills, 
benumbs,  or  paralyzes.  Thus  the  head  of  the  Gorgon 
Medusa  turns  into  stone  those  who  look  upon  it.  Thus 
the  ointment  of  the  dervise,  in  the  tale  of  Baba  Abdallah, 
not  only  reveals  all  the  treasures  of  the  earth,  but  in- 
stantly thereafter  blinds  the  unhappy  man  who  tests  its 
powers.  And  thus  the  hand  of  glory,  which  bursts  open 
bars  and  bolts,  benumbs  also  those  who  happen  to  be 
near  it.  Indeed,  few  of  the  favoured  mortals  who  were 
allowed  to  visit  the  caverns  opened  by  sesame  or  the 
luck-flower,  escaped  without  disaster.  The  monkish  tale 
of  "The  Clerk  and  the  Image,"  in  which  the  primeval 
mythical  features  are  curiously  distorted,  well  illustrates 
this  point. 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 


59 


In  the  city  of  Eome  there  formerly  stood  an  image 
with  its  right  hand  extended  and  on  its  forefinger  the 
words  "strike  here."  Many  wise  men  puzzled  in  vain 
over  the  meaning  of  the  inscription ;  but  at  last  a  cer- 
tain priest  observed  that  whenever  the  sun  shone  on  the 
figure,  the  shadow^  of  the  finger  w^as  discernible  on  the 
ground  at  a  little  distance  from  the  statue.  Having 
marked  the  spot,  he  waited  until  midnight,  and  then 
began  to  dig.  At  last  his  spade  struck  upon  sometliing 
hard.  It  was  a  trap-door,  below  which  a  fiight  of  marble 
steps  descended  into  a  spacious  hall,  where  many  men 
were  sitting  in  solemn  silence  amid  piles  of  gold  and 
diamonds  and  long  rows  of  enamelled  vases.  Beyond 
this  he  found  another  room,  a  gyncecium  filled  with  beau- 
tiful women  reclining  on  richly  embroidered  sofas ;  yet 
here,  too,  all  was  profound  silence.  A  superb  banqueting- 
hall  next  met  his  astonished  gaze ;  then  a  silent  kitchen ; 
then  granaries  loaded  with  forage ;  then  a  stable  crowded 
with  motionless  horses.  The  whole  place  was  brilliantly 
lighted  by  a  carbuncle  which  was  suspended  in  one  cor- 
ner of  the  reception-room ;  and  opposite  stood  an  archer, 
with  his  bow  and  arrow  raised,  in  the  act  of  taking  aim 
at  the  jewel.  As  the  priest  passed  back  through  this 
hall,  he  saw^  a  diamond-hilted  knife  lying  on  a  marble 
table  ;  and  wishing  to  carry  away  something  wherewith 
to  accredit  his  story,  he  reached  out  his  hand  to  take  it ; 
but  no  sooner  had  he  touched  it  than  all  was  dark.  The 
archer  had  shot  with  his  arrow,  the  bright  jew^el  was 
shivered  into  a  thousand  pieces,  the  staircase  had  fled, 
and  the  priest  found  himself  buried  alive.* 

*  Compare  Spenser's  story  of  Sir  Guyon,  m  the  "Faer}'  Qneen,"  where, 
however,  the  knight  fares  better  than  this  poor  priest.  Usually  these 
lightning-caverns  were  like  Ixion's  treasure-house,  into  which  none 
might  look  and  live.    This  conception  is  the  foundation  of  part  of  the 


6o 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


Usually,  however,  though  the  lightning  is  wont  to 
strike  dead,  with  its  basilisk  glance,  those  who  rashly 
enter  its  mysterious  caverns,  it  is  regarded  rather  as  a 
benefactor  than  as  a  destroyer.  The  feelings  with  which 
the  myth-making  age  contemplated  the  thunder-shower 
as  it  revived  the  earth  paralyzed  by  a  long  drought,  are 
shown  in  the  myth  of  Oidipous.  The  Sphinx,  whose 
name  signifies  "  the  one  who  binds,"  is  the  demon  who 
sits  on  the  cloud-rock  and  imprisons  the  rain,  muttering 
dark  sayings  which  none  but  the  all-knowing  sun  may 
understand.  The  flash  of  solar  light  which  causes  the 
monster  to  fling  herself  down  from  the  cliff  with  a  fear- 
ful roar,  restores  the  land  to  prosperity.  But  besides 
this,  the  association  of  the  thunder-storm  with  the  ap- 
proach of  summer  has  produced  many  myths  in  which 
the  lightning  is  symbolized  as  the  life-renewing  wand  of 
the  victorious  sun-god.  Hence  the  use  of  the  divining- 
rod  in  the  cure  of  disease ;  and  hence  the  large  family  of 
schamir-myths  in  which  the  dead  are  restored  to  life  by 
leaves  or  herbs.  In  Grimm's  tale  of  the  Three  Snake 
Leaves,  "  a  prince  is  buried  alive  (like  Sindbad)  with  his 
dead  wife,  and  seeing  a  snake  approaching  her  body,  he 
cuts  it  in  three  pieces.  Presently  another  snake,  crawl- 
ing from  the  corner,  saw  the  other  lying  dead,  and  going 
away  soon  returned  with  three  green  leaves  in  its  mouth ; 
then  laying  the  parts  of  the  body  together  so  as  to  join, 
it  put  one  leaf  on  each  wound,  and  the  dead  snake  was 
alive  again.  The  prince,  applying  the  leaves  to  his  wife's 
body,  restores  her  also  to  life."  *  In  the  Greek  story, 
told  by  ^lian  and  Apollodoros,  Polyidos  is  shut  up  with 
the  corpse  of  Glaukos,  which  he  is  ordered  to  restore  to 

story  of  Blue-Beard  and  of  the  Arabian  tale  of  tlie  third  one-eyed  Cal- 
ender. 

♦  Cox,  Mythology  of  the  Aryan  Nations,  Vol.  I.  p.  161. 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE.  Ol 

life.  He  kills  a  dragon  which  is  approaching  the  body, 
but  is  presently  astonished  at  seeing  another  dragon  come 
with  a  blade  of  grass  and  place  it  upon  its  dead  compan- 
ion, which  instantly  rises  from  the  ground.  Polyidos 
takes  the  same  blade  of  grass,  and  with  it  resuscitates 
Glaukos.  The  same  incident  occurs  in  the  Hindu  story 
of  Panch  Phul  Ptanee,  and  in  Fouqu^'s  "Sir  Elidoc," 
which  is  founded  on  a  Breton  legend. 

We  need  not  wonder,  then,  at  the  extraordinary  thera- 
peutic properties  which  are  in  all  Aryan  folk-lore  as- 
cribed to  the  various  lightning-plants.  In  Sweden  sani- 
tary amulets  are  made  of  mistletoe-twigs,  and  the  plant 
is  supposed  to  be  a  specific  against  epilepsy  and  an  anti- 
dote for  poisons.  In  Cornwall  children  are  passed  through 
holes  in  ash-trees  in  order  to  cure  them  of  hernia.  Ash 
rods  are  used  in- some  parts  of  England  for  the  cure  of 
diseased  sheep,  cows,  and  horses ;  and  in  particular  they 
are  supposed  to  neutralize  the  venom  of  serpents.  The 
notion  that  snakes  are  afraid  of  an  ash-tree  is  not  extinct 
even  in  the  United  States.  The  other  day  I  was  told, 
not  by  an  old  granny,  but  by  a  man  fairly  educated  and 
endowed  with  a  very  unusual  amount  of  good  common- 
sense,  that  a  rattlesnake  will  sooner  go  through  fire  than 
creep  over  ash  leaves  or  into  the  shadow  of  an  ash-tree. 
Exactly  the  same  statement  is  made  by  Pliny,  who  adds 
that  if  you  draw  a  circle  with  an  ash  rod  around  the  spot 
of  ground  on  which  a  snake  is  lying,  the  animal  must  die 
of  starvation,  being  as  effectually  imprisoned  as  Ugohno 
in  the  dungeon  at  Pisa.  In  Cornwall  it  is  believed  that 
a  blow  from  an  ash  stick  will  instantly  kill  any  serpent. 
The  ash  shares  this  virtue  with  the  hazel  and  fern.  A 
Swedish  peasant  will  tell  you  that  snakes  may  be  de- 
prived of  their  venom  by  a  touch  with  a  hazel  wand; 
and  when  an  ancient  Greek  had  occasion  to  make  his 


62 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


bed  in  the  woods,  he  selected  fern  leaves  if  possible,  in 
the  belief  that  the  smell  of  them  would  drive  away  poi- 
sonous animals.* 

But  the  beneficent  character  of  the  lightning  appears 
still  more  clearly  in  another  class  of  myths.  To  the  prim- 
itive man  the  shaft  of  light  coming  down  from  heaven  was 
typical  of  the  original  descent  of  fire  for  the  benefit  and 
improvement  of  the  human  race.  The  Sioux  Indians  ac- 
count for  the  origin  of  fire  by  a  myth  of  unmistakable  kin- 
ship ;  they  say  that  "  their  first  ancestor  obtained  his  fire 
from  the  sparks  which  a  friendly  panther  struck  from  the 
rocks  as  he  scampered  up  a  stony  hill."  -f-  This  panther 
is  obviously  the  counterpart  of  the  Aryan  bird  which 
drops  schamir.  But  the  Aryan  imagination  hit  upon  a 
far  more  remarkable  conception.  The  ancient  Hindus 
obtained  fire  by  a  process  similar  to  that  employed  by 
Count  Eumford  in  his  experiments  on  the  generation  of 
heat  by  friction.  They  first  wound  a  couple  of  cords 
around  a  pointed  stick  in  such  a  way  that  the  unwinding 
of  the  one  would  wind  up  the  other,  and  then,  placing 
the  point  of  the  stick  against  a  circular  disk  of  wood, 
twirled  it  rapidly  by  alternate  pulls  on  the  two  strings. 
This  instrument  is  called  a  cliark,  and  is  still  used  in 
South  Africa,  \  in  Australia,  in  Sumatra,  and  among  the 
Veddahs  of  Ceylon.  The  Eussians  found  it  in  Kamt- 
chatka ;  and  it  was  formerly  employed  in  America,  from 
Labrador  to  the  Straits  of  Magellan.  §    The  Hindus 

*  Kelly,  Indo-European  Folk-Lore,  pp.  147,  183,  186,  193. 

+  Brinton,  Myths  of  the  New  World,  p.  151. 

X  Callaway,  Zulu  Nursery  Tales,  I.  173,  Note  12. 

§  Tylor,  Early  History  of  Mankind,  p.  238  ;  Primitive  Culture,  Vol. 
II.  p.  254  ;  Darwin,  Naturalist's  Voyage,  p.  409. 

'*  Jacky's  next  proceeding  was  to  get  some  dry  sticks  and  wood,  and 
prepare  a  fire,  which,  to  George's  astonishment,  he  lighted  thus.  He 
got  a  block  of  wood,  in  the  middle  of  which  he  made  a  hole  ;  then  he 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 


63 


churned  milk  by  a  similar  process ;  *  and  in  order  to 
explain  the  thunder-storm,  a  Sanskrit  poem  tells  how 
"  once  upon  a  time  the  Devas,  or  gods,  and  their  oppo- 
nents, the  Asuras,  made  a  tmce,  and  joined  together  in 
churning  the  ocean  to  procure  amrita,  the  drink  of  im- 
mortality. They  took  Mount  Mandara  for  a  churning- 
stick,  and,  wrapping  the  great  serpent  Sesha  round  it  for 
a  rope,  they  made  the  mountain  spin  round  to  and  fro, 
the  Devas  pulling  at  the  serpent's  tail,  and  the  Asuras  at 
its  head."-)-  In  this  myth  the  churning-stick,  with  its 
flying  serpent-cords,  is  the  lightning,  and  the  amrita,  or 
drink  of  immortality,  is  simply  the  rain-water,  which  in 
Aryan  folk-lore  possesses  the  same  healing  virtues  as  the 
lightning.  "  In  Sclavonic  myths  it  is  the  water  of  life 
which  restores  the  dead  earth,  a  water  brought  by  a  bird 
from  the  depths  of  a  gloomy  cave."  J  It  is  the  celestial 
soma  or  mead  which  Indra  loves  to  drink ;  it  is  the  am- 
brosial nectar  of  the  Olympian  gods ;  it  is  the  charmed 
water  which  in  the  Arabian  Nights  restores  to  human 
shape  the  victims  of  wicked  sorcerers ;  and  it  is  the  elixir 
of  life  which  mediaeval  philosophers  tried  to  discover,  and 
in  quest  of  which  Ponce  de  Leon  traversed  the  wilds  of 
riorida.§ 

cut  and  pointed  a  long  stick,  and  inserting  the  point  into  the  block, 
worked  it  round  between  his  palms  for  some  time  and  with  increasing 
rapidity.  Presently  there  came  a  smell  of  burning  wood,  and  soon  after 
it  burst  into  a  flame  at  the  point  of  contact.  Jacky  cut  slices  of  shark 
and  roasted  them."  —  Reade,  Never  too  Late  to  Mend,  chap,  xxxviii. 

*  The  production  of  fire  by  the  drill  is  often  called  churning,  e,  g. 
'*  He  took  the  uvati  [chark],  and  sat  down  and  churned  it,  and  kindled 
a  fire."    Callaway,  Zulu  Nursery  Tales,  I  174. 

+  Kelly,  Indo-European  Folk-Lore,  p.  39.  Bumouf,  BhSgavata  Pu- 
rana,  VIII.  6,  32. 

X  Baring-Gould,  Curious  Myths,  p.  149. 

§  It  is  also  the  regenerating  water  of  baptism,  and  the  **  holy  water ' 
of  the  Roman  Catholic. 


64 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


The  most  interesting  point  in  this  Hindu  myth  is  the 
name  of  the  peaked  mountain  Mandara,  or  Manthara, 
which  the  gods  and  devils  took  for  their  churning-stick. 
The  word  means  "  a  churning-stick,"  and  it  appears  also, 
with  a  prefixed  preposition,  in  the  name  of  the  fire-drill, 
framantlm.  Now  Kuhn  has  proved  that  this  name,  jpra- 
mantlm,  is  etymologically  identical  with  Frometheits,  the 
name  of  the  beneficent  Titan,  who  stole  fire  from  heaven 
and  bestowed  it  upon  mankind  as  the  richest  of  boons. 
This  sublime  personage  was  originally  nothing  but  the 
celestial  drill  which  churns  fire  out  of  the  clouds ;  but 
the  Greeks  had  so  entirely  forgotten  his  origin  that  they 
interpreted  his  name  as  meaning  "the  one  who  thinks 
beforehand,"  and  accredited  him  with  a  brother,  Epime- 
theus,  or  "  the  one  who  thinks  too  late."  The  Greeks  had 
adopted  another  name,  trypanon,  for  their  fire-drill,  and 
thus  the  primitive  character  of  Prometheus  became  ob- 
scured. 

I  have  said  above  that  it  was  regarded  as  absolutely 
essential  that  the  divining-rod  should  be  forked.  To 
this  rule,  however,  there  was  one  exception,  and  if  any 
further  evidence  be  needed  to  convince  the  most  scepti- 
cal that  the  divining-rod  is  nothing  but  a  symbol  of  the 
lightning,  that  exception  will  furnish  such  evidence.  For 
this  exceptional  kind  of  divining-rod  was  made  of  a 
pointed  stick  rotating  in  a  block  of  wood,  and  it  was  the 
presence  of  hidden  water  or  treasure  which  was  supposed 
to  excite  the  rotatory  motion. 

In  the  myths  relating  to  Prometheus,  the  lightning-god 
appears  as  the  originator  of  civilization,  sometimes  as  the 
creator  of  the  human  race,  and  always  as  its  friend,*  suf- 

*  In  the  Vedas  the  rain-god  Soma,  originally  the  personification  of 
the  sacrificial  ambrosia,  is  the  deity  who  imparts  to  men  life,  knowledge, 
and  happiness.  See  Breal,  Hercule'  et  Cacus,  p.  85.  Tylor,  Primitive 
Culture,  Vol.  II.  p.  277- 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 


65 


fering  in  its  behalf  the  most  fearful  tortures  at  the  hands 
of  the  jealous  Zeus.  In  one  story  he  creates  man  by 
making  a  clay  image  and  infusing  into  it  a  spark  of  the 
fire  which  he  had  brought  from  heaven  ;  in  another  story 
he  is  himself  the  first  man.  In  the  Peloponnesian  myth 
Phoroneus,  who  is  Prometheus  under  another  name,  is  the 
first  man,  and  his  mother  was  an  ash-tree.  In  Norse 
mythology,  also,  the  gods  were  said  to  have  made  tlie 
first  man  out  of  the  ash-tree  Yggdrasil.  The  association 
of  the  heavenly  fire  with  the  life-giving  forces  of  nature 
is  very  common  in  the  myths  of  both  hemispheres,  and 
in  view  of  the  facts  already  cited  it  need  not  surprise  us. 
Hence  the  Hindu  Agni  and  the  Norse  Thor  were  patrons 
of  marriage,  and  in  Norway,  the  most  lucky  day  on  which 
to  be  married  is  still  supposed  to  be  Thursday,  which  in 
old  times  was  the  day  of  the  fire-god.*  Hence  the  light- 
ning-plants have  divers  virtues  in  matters  pertaining  to 
marriage.  The  Eomans  made  their  w^edding  torches  of 
whitethorn ;  hazel-nuts  are  still  used  all  over  Europe  in 
divinations  relating  to  the  future  lover  or  sweetheart ;  "t* 
and  under  a  mistletoe  bough  it  is  allowable  for  a  gentle- 
man to  kiss  a  lady.  A  vast  number  of  kindred  supersti- 
tions are  described  by  Mr.  Kelly,  to  whom  I  am  indebted 
for  many  of  these  examples.  I 

*  We  may,  perhaps,  see  here  the  reason  for  making  the  Greek  fire-god 
Hephaistos  the  husband  of  Aphrodite. 

+  "Our  country  maidens  are  well  aware  that  triple  leaves  plucked  at 
hazard  from  the  common  as?i  are  worn  in  the  breast,  for  the  purpose  of 
causing  prophetic  dreams  respecting  a  dilatory  lover.  The  leaves  of  the 
yellow  trefoil  are  supposed  to  possess  similar  virtues."  —  Harland  and 
Wilkinson,  Lancashire  Folk-Lore,  p.  20. 

X  "In  Peru,  a  mighty  and  far-worshipped  deity  was  Catequil,  the 
thunder-god,  ....  he  who  in  thunder-flash  and  clap  hurls  from  his 
sling  the  small,  round,  smooth  thunder-stones,  treasured  in  the  villages 
as  fire-fetishes  and  charms  to  kindle  the  flames  of  love."  —  Tylor,  op.  cit. 
Vol.  II.  p.  239. 

s 


66 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


Thus  we  reach  at  last  the  completed  conception  of  the 
divining-rod,  or  as  it  is  called  in  this  sense  the  wish-rod, 
with  its  kindred  talismans,  from  Aladdin's  lamp  and  the 
purse  of  Bedreddin  Hassan,  to  the  Sangreal,  the  philoso- 
pher's stone,  and  the  goblets  of  Oberon  and  Tristram. 
These  symbols  of  the  reproductive  energies  of  nature, 
which  give  to  the  possessor  every  good  and  perfect  gift, 
illustrate  the  uncurbed  belief  in  the  power  of  wish  which 
the  ancient  man  shared  with  modern  children.  In  the 
Norse  story  of  Frodi's  quern,  the  myth  assumes  a  whim- 
sical shape.  The  prose  Edda  tells  of  a  primeval  age  of 
gold,  when  everybody  had  whatever  he  wanted.  This 
was  because  the  giant  Frodi  had  a  mill  which  ground  out 
peace  and  plenty  and  abundance  of  gold  withal,  so  that 
it  lay  about  the  roads  like  pebbles.  Through  the  inex- 
cusable avarice  of  Frodi,  this  wonderful  implement  was 
lost  to  the  world.  For  he  kept  his  maid-servants  work- 
ing at  the  mill  until  they  got  out  of  patience,  and  began 
to  make  it  grind  out  liatred  and  war.  Then  came  a 
mighty  sea-rover  by  night  and  slew  Frodi  and  carried 
away  the  maids  and  the  quern.  When  he  got  well  out 
to  sea,  he  told  them  to  grind  out  salt,  and  so  they  did 
with  a  vengeance.  They  ground  the  ship  full  of  salt  and 
sank  it,  and  so  the  quern  was  lost  forever,  but  the  sea 
remains  salt  unto  this  day. 

Mr.  Kelly  rightly  identifies  Frodi  with  the  sun-god  Fro 
or  Freyr,  and  observes  that  the  magic  mill  is  only  an- 
other form  of  the  fire-churn,  or  chark.  According  to 
another  version  the  quern  is  still  grinding  away  and 
keeping  the  sea  salt,  and  over  the  place  where  it  lies 
there  is  a  prodigious  whirlpool  or  maelstrom  which  sucks 
down  ships. 

In  its  completed  shape,  the  lightning-wand  is  the  ca- 
duceuSy  or  rod  of  Hermes.    I  observed,  in  the  preceding 


THE  DESCENT  OF  FIRE. 


67 


paper,  that  in  the  Greek  conception  of  Hermes  there 
have  been  fused  together  the  attributes  of  two  deities 
who  were  originally  distinct.  The  Hermes  of  the  Ho- 
meric Hymn  is  a  wind-god ;  but  the  later  Hermes  Ago- 
raios,  the  patron  of  gymnasia,  the  mutilation  of  whose 
statues  caused  such  terrible  excitement  in  Athens  during 
the  Peloponnesian  War,  is  a  very  different  personage. 
He  is  a  fire-god,  invested  with  many  solar  attributes,  and 
represents  the  quickening  forces  of  nature.  In  this  ca- 
pacity the  invention  of  fire  was  ascribed  to  him  as  well 
as  to  Prometheus ;  he  was  said  to  be  the  friend  of  man- 
kind, and  was  surnamed  Ploutodotes,  or  "  the  giver  of 
wealth." 

The  Norse  wind-god  Odin  has  in  like  manner  acquired 
several  of  the  attributes  of  Freyr  and  Thor.*  His  light- 
ning-spear, which  is  borrowed  from  Thor,  appears  by  a 
comical  metamorphosis  as  a  wish-rod  which  will  admin- 
ister a  sound  thrashing  to  the  enemies  of  its  possessor. 
Having  cut  a  hazel  stick,  you  have  only  to  lay  down  an 
old  coat,  name  your  intended  victim,  wish  he  was  there, 
and  whack  away :  he  will  howl  with  pain  at  every  blow. 
This  wonderful  cudgel  appears  in  Dasent's  tale  of  "  The 
Lad  who  went  to  the  North  Wind,"  with  whicli  we  may 
conclude  this  discussion.  The  story  is  told,  with  little 
variation,  in  Hindustan,  Germany,  and  Scandinavia. 

The  North  Wind,  representing  the  mischievous  Hermes, 
once  blew  away  a  poor  woman's  meal.  So  her  boy  went 
to  the  North  Wind  and  demanded  his  rights  for  the  meal 
his  mother  had  lost.  "  I  have  n't  got  your  meal,"  said 
the  Wind,  "  but  here 's  a  tablecloth  which  will  cover 
itself  with  an  excellent  dinner  whenever  you  tell  it  to." 

*  In  Polynesia,  *'the  great  deity  Maui  adds  a  new  complication  to  his 
enigmatic  solar-celestial  character  by  appearing  as  a  wind-god."  —  Tylor, 
op.  cit.  Vol.  II.  p.  242. 


68 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


So  the  lad  took  the  cloth  and  started  for  home.  At  night- 
fall he  stopped  at  an  inn,  spread  his  cloth  on  the  table, 
and  ordered  it  to  cover  itself  with  good  things,  and  so  it 
did.  But  the  landlord,  who  thought  it  would  be  money 
in  his  pocket  to  have  such  a  cloth,  stole  it  after  the  boy 
had  gone  to  bed,  and  substituted  another  just  like  it  in 
appearance.  !N"ext  day  the  boy  went  home  in  great  glee 
to  show  off  for  his  mother's  astonishment  what  the  North 
Wind  had  given  him,  but  all  the  dinner  he  got  that  day 
was  what  the  old  woman  cooked  for  him.  In  his  despair 
he  went  back  to  the  North  Wind  and  called  him  a  liar, 
and  again  demanded  his  rights  for  the  meal  he  had  lost. 
"  I  have  n't  got  your  meal,"  said  the  Wind,  "  but  here 's  a 
ram  which  will  drop  money  out  of  its  fleece  whenever 
you  tell  it  to."  So  the  lad  travelled  home,  stopping  over 
night  at  the  same  inn,  and  when  he  got  home  he  found 
himself  with  a  ram  which  did  n't  drop  coins  out  of  its 
■fleece.  A  third  time  he  visited  the  North  Wind,  and 
obtained  a  bag  with  a  stick  in  it  which,  at  the  word  of 
command,  would  jump  out  of  the  bag  and  lay  on  until 
told  to  stop.  Guessing  how  matters  stood  as  to  his  cloth 
and  ram,  he  turned  in  at  the  same  tavern,  and  going  to 
a  bench  lay  down  as  if  to  sleep.  The  landlord  thought 
that  a  stick  carried  about  in  a  bag  must  be  worth  some- 
thing, and  so  he  stole  quietly  up  to  the  bag,  meaning  to 
get  the  stick  out  and  change  it.  But  just  as  he  got 
within  whacking  distance,  the  boy  gave  the  word,  and 
out  jumped  the  stick  and  beat  the  thief  until  he  prom- 
ised to  give  back  the  ram  and  the  tablecloth.  And  so 
the  boy  got  his  rights  for  the  meal  which  the  North 
Wind  had  blown  away. 

October,  1870. 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS. 


69 


III. 

WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS. 

IT  is  related  by  Ovid  that  Lykaon,  king  of  Arkadia, 
once  invited  Zeus  to  dinner,  and  served  up  for  him 
a  dish  of  human  flesh,  in  order  to  test  the  god's  omni- 
science. But  the  trick  miserably  failed,  and  tlie  impious 
monarch  received  the  punishment  which  his  crime  had 
merited.  He  was  transformed  into  a  wolf,  that  he  might 
henceforth  feed  upon  the  viands  with  which  he  had  dared 
to  pollute  the  table  of  the  king  of  Olympos.  Erom  that 
time  forth,  according  to  Pliny,  a  noble  Arkadian  was  each 
year,  on  the  festival  of  Zeus  Lykaios,  led  to  the  margin 
of  a  certain  lake.  Hanging  his  clothes  upon  a  tree,  he 
then  plunged  into  the  water  and  became  a  wolf  Eor  the 
space  of  nine  years  he  roamed  about  the  adjacent  woods, 
and  then,  if  he  had  not  tasted  human  flesh  during  all  this 
time,  he  was  allowed  to  swim  back  to  the  place  where 
his  clothes  were  hanging,  put  them  on,  and  return  to  his 
natural  form.  It  is  further  related  of  a  certain  Demai- 
netos,  that,  having  once  been  present  at  a  human  sacrifice 
to  Zeus  Lykaios,  he  ate  of  the  flesh,  and  was  transformed 
into  a  wolf  for  a  term  of  ten  years.* 

These  and  other  similar  mythical  germs  were  devel- 
oped by  the  mediseval  imagination  into  the  horrible 
superstition  of  werewolves. 

A  werewolf,  or  loztp-(/arou,'f  was  a  person  who  had  the 

*  Compare  Plato,  Republic,  VIII.  15. 

t  Were-wolf  =  man-wolf y  o^c^r  meaning  "man."  (xorow  is  a  Gallic 
orraption  of  wehricolf,  so  that  loup-garou  is  a  tautological  expression. 


70 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


power  of  transforming  himself  into  a  wolf,  being  en- 
dowed, while  in  the  lupine  state,  w^ith  the  intelligence 
of  a  man,  the  ferocity  of  a  wolf,  and  the  irresistible 
streno^th  of  a  demon.  The  ancients  believed  in  the  exist- 
ence  of  such  persons ;  but  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  meta- 
morphosis was  supposed  to  be  a  phenomenon  of  daily 
occurrence,  and  even  at  the  present  day,  in  secluded  por- 
tions of  Europe,  the  superstition  is  still  cherished  by 
peasants.  The  belief,  moreover,  is  supported  by  a  vast 
amount  of  evidence,  which  can  neither  be  argued  nor 
pooh-poohed  into  insignificance.  It  is  the  business  of 
the  comparative  mythologist  to  trace  the  pedigree  of  the 
ideas  from  which  such  a  conception  may  have  sprung ; 
while  to  the  critical  historian  belongs  the  task  of  ascer- 
taining and  classifying  the  actual  facts  which  this  par- 
ticular conception  was  used  to  interpret. 

The  media3val  belief  in  werewolves  is  especially  adapted 
to  illustrate  the  complicated  manner  in  which  divers 
mythical  conceptions  and  misunderstood  natural  occur- 
rences will  combine  to  generate  a  long-enduring  super- 
stition. Mr.  Cox,  indeed,  would  have  us  believe  that  the 
whole  notion  arose  from  an  unintentional  play  upon 
words;  but  the  careful  survey  of  the  field,  which  has 
been  taken  by  Hertz  and  Baring-Gould,  leads  to  the  con- 
clusion that  many  other  circumstances  have  been  at  work. 
The  delusion,  though  doubtless  purely  mythical  in  its 
origin,  nevertheless  presents  in  its  developed  state  a  curi- 
ous mixture  of  mythical  and  historical  elements. 

With  regard  to  the  Arkadian  legend,  taken  by  itself, 
Mr.  Cox  is  probably  right.  The  story  seems  to  belong 
to  that  large  class  of  myths  which  have  been  devised  in 
order  to  explain  the  meaning  of  equivocal  words  whose 
true  significance  has  been  forgotten.  The  epithet  LykaioSf 
as  applied  to  Zeus,  had  originally  no  reference  to  wolves ; 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS.  -I 


it  means  "  the  bright  one,"  and  gave  rise  to  lycanthropic 
legends  only  because  of  the  similarity  in  sound  between 
the  names  for  "  wolf  "  and  "  brightness."  Aryan  mythol- 
ogy furnishes  numerous  other  instances  of  this  confu- 
sion. The  solar  deity,  Phoibos  Lykegenes,  was  originally 
the  "  offspring  of  light " ;  but  popular  etymology  made  a 
kind  of  werewolf  of  him  by  interpreting  his  name  as  the 
"  w^olf-born."  The  name  of  the  hero  Autolykos  means 
simply  the  "  self-luminous  "  ;  but  it  was  more  frequently 
interpreted  as  meaning  "  a  very  wolf,"  in  allusion  to  the 
supposed  character  of  its  possessor.  Bazra,  the  name  of 
the  citadel  of  Carthage,  was  the  Punic  word  for  "for- 
tress "  ;  but  the  Greeks  confounded  it  with  hyrsa, "  a  hide," 
and  hence  the  story  of  the  ox-hides  cut  into  strips  by 
Dido  in  order  to  measure  the  area  of  the  place  to  be  forti- 
fied. The  old  theory  that  the  Irish  were  Phoenicians  had 
a  similar  origin.  The  name  Fena,  used  to  designate  the 
old  Scoti  or  Irish,  is  the  plural  of  Fion,  "  fair,"  seen  in 
the  name  of  the  hero  Fion  Gall,  or  "  Fingal " ;  but  the 
monkish  chroniclers  identified  Fena  with  Phoinix,  whence 
arose  the  myth ;  and  by  a  like  misunderstanding  of  the 
epithet  Mileclh,  or  "warrior,"  applied  to  Fion  by  the 
Gaelic  bards,  there  was  generated  a  mythical  hero,  Mile- 
si'us,  and  the  soubriquet "  Milesian,"  colloquially  employed 
in  speaking  of  the  Irish.*  So  the  Franks  explained  the 
name  of  the  town  Daras,  in  Mesopotamia,  by  the  story 
that  the  Emperor  Justinian  once  addressed  the  chief  mag- 
istrate with  the  exclamation,  dams,  "  thou  shalt  give  "  :  f 
the  Greek  chronicler,  Malalas,  who  spells  the  name  Boras, 
informs  us  with  equal  complacency  that  it  was  the  place 
where  Alexander  overcame  Codomannus  with  Bdpv,  "  the 
spear."    A  certain  passage  in  the  Alps  is  called  Scaletta, 

*  Meyer,  in  Bunsen's  Philosophy  of  Universal  Historj',  Vol.  I.  p.  151. 
+  Aimoin,  De  Gestis  Francorum,  II.  5. 


72 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS, 


from  its  resemblance  to  a  staircase ;  but  according  to  a 
local  tradition  it  owes  its  name  to  the  bleaching  skeletons 
of  a  company  of  Moors  who  were  destroyed  there  in  the 
eighth  centiiry,  while  attempting  to  penetrate  into  North- 
ern Italy.  The  name  of  Antwerp  denotes  the  town  built 
at  a  "wharf" ;  but  it  sounds  very  much  like  the  Flemish 
handt  werpen,  "  hand-throwing  "  :  "  hence  arose  the  legend 
of  the  giant  who  cut  off  the  hands  of  those  who  passed 
his  castle  without  paying  him  black-mail,  and  threw  them 
into  the  Scheldt."  *  In  the  myth  of  Bishop  Hatto,  related 
in  a  previous  paper,  the  Mause-thurm  is  a  corruption  of 
maid-thurm  ;  it  means  "  customs-tower,"  and  has  nothing 
to  do  with  mice  or  rats.  Doubtless  this  etymology  was 
the  cause  of  the  floating  myth  getting  fastened  to  this 
particular  place ;  that  it  did  not  give  rise  to  the  myth 
itself  is  shown  by  the  existence  of  the  same  tale  in  other 
places.  Somewhere  in  England  there  is  a  place  called 
Chateau  Vert ;  the  peasantry  have  corrupted  it  into  Shot- 
over,  and  say  that  it  has  borne  that  name  ever  since 
Little  John  shot  over  a  high  hill  in  the  neighbourhood.-!* 
Latium  means  "  the  flat  land  "  ;  but,  according  to  Virgil, 
it  is  the  place  where  Saturn  once  hid  (latuisset)  from  the 
wrath  of  his  usurping  son  Jupiter.  J 

*  Taylor,  Words  and  Places,  p.  393. 

t  Very  similar  to  this  is  the  etymological  confusion  upon  which  is 
based  the  myth  of  the  *'  confusion  of  tongues"  in  the  eleventh  chapter 
of  Genesis.  The  name  "Babel"  is  really  Bah- II,  or  "the  gate  of  God  "  ; 
but  the  Hebrew  writer  erroneously  derives  the  word  from  the  root  SSs 
halal,  "to  confuse";  and  hence  arises  the  mythical  explanation, — 
that  Bahel  was  a  place  where  human  speech  became  confused.  See  Eaw- 
linson,  in  Smith's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  Vol.  I.  p.  149  ;  Renan,  His- 
toire  des  Langues  Semitiqiies,  Vol.  I.  p.  32  ;  Donaldson,  New  Cratylus, 
p.  74,  note  ;  Colenso  on  the  Pentateuch,  Vol.  IV.  p.  268. 

t  Virg.  iEn.  VIII.  322.  With  Latium  compare  TrXari^j,  Skr.  ^jm^/i 
(to  spread  out),  Eng.  flat.  Ferrar,  Comparative  Grammar  of  Greek, 
Latin,  and  Sanskrit,  Vol.  I.  p.  31. 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS.  73 

It  was  in  this  way  that  the  constellation  of  the  Great 
Bear  received  its  name.  The  Greek  word  arhtos,  answer- 
ing to  the  Sanskrit  riksha,  meant  originally  any  bright 
object,  and  was  applied  to  the  bear  —  for  what  reason  it 
would  not  be  easy  to  state  —  and  to  that  constellation 
which  was  most  conspicuous  in  the  latitude  of  the  early 
home  of  the  Aryans.  When  the  Greeks  had  long  forgot- 
ten why  these  stars  were  called  arktoi,  they  symbolized 
them  as  a  Great  Bear  fixed  in  the  sky.  So  that,  as  Max 
Muller  observes,  "  the  name  of  the  Arctic  regions  rests 
on  a  misunderstanding  of  a  name  framed  thousands  of 
years  ago  in  Central  Asia,  and  the  surprise  with  which 
many  a  thoughtful  observer  has  looked  at  these  seven 
bright  stars,  wondering  why  they  were  ever  called  the 
Bear,  is  removed  by  a  reference  to  the  early  annals  of 
human  speech."  Among  the  Algonquins  the  sun-god 
Michabo  was  represented  as  a  hare,  his  name  being  com- 
pounded of  michi,  "  great,"  and  wdbos,  "  a  hare  "  ;  yet 
wahos  also  meant  "  white,"  so  that  the  god  was  doubtless 
originally  called  simply  "the  Great  White  One."  The 
same  naive  process  has  made  bears  of  the  Arkadians, 
whose  name,  like  that  of  the  Lykians,  merely  signified 
that  they  were  "  children  of  light "  ;  and  the  metamor- 
phosis of  Kallisto,  mother  of  Arkas,  into  a  bear,  and  of 
Lykaon  into  a  wolf,  rests  apparently  upon  no  other  foun- 
dation than  an  erroneous  etymology.  Originally  Lykaon 
was  neither  man  nor  wolf ;  he  was  but  another  form  of 
Phoibos  Lykegenes,  the  light-born  sun,  and,  as  Mr.  Cox 
has  shown,  his  legend  is  but  a  variation  of  that  of  Tanta- 
los,  who  in  time  of  drought  offers  to  Zeus  the  flesh  of  his 
own  offspring,  the  withered  fruits,  and  is  punished  for 
his  impiety. 

It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  this  explanation,  though 
valid  as  far  as  it  goes,  is  inadequate  to  explain  all  the 

4 


74 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


features  of  the  werewolf  superstition,  or  to  account  for  its 
presence  in  all  Aryan  countries  and  among  many  peoples 
who  are  not  of  Aryan  origin.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  myth-makers  transformed  Lykaon  into  a  wolf 
because  of  his  unlucky  name  ;  because  what  really  meant 
"  bright  man  "  seemed  to  them  to  mean  "  wolf-man  "  ;  but 
it  has  by  no  means  been  proved  that  a  similar  equivoca- 
tion occurred  in  the  case  of  all  the  primitive  Aryan  were- 
wolves, nor  has  it  been  shown  to  be  probable  that  among 
each  people  the  being  with  the  uncanny  name  got  thus 
accidentally  confounded  with  the  particular  beast  most 
dreaded  by  that  people.  Etymology  alone  does  not  ex- 
plain the  fact  that  while  Gaul  has  been  the  favourite 
haunt  of  the  man-wolf,  Scandinavia  has  been  preferred 
by  the  man-bear,  and  Hindustan  by  the  man-tiger.  To 
account  for  such  a  widespread  phenomenon  we  must  seek 
a  more  general  cause. 

Nothing  is  more  strikingly  characteristic  of  primitive 
thinking  than  the  close  community  of  nature  which  it 
assumes  between  man  and  brute.  The  doctrine  of  me- 
tempsychosis, which  is  found  in  some  shape  or  other  all 
over  the  world,  implies  a  fundamental  identity  between 
the  two ;  the  Hindu  is  taught  to  respect  the  flocks  brows- 
ing in  the  meadow,  and  will  on  no  account  lift  his  hand 
against  a  cow,  for  who  knows  but  it  may  be  his  own 
grandmother  ?  The  recent  researches  of  Mr.  M'Lennan 
and  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  have  served  to  connect  this 
feeling  with  the  primeval  worship  of  ancestors  and  with 
the  savage  customs  of  totemism.* 

The  worship  of  ancestors  seems  to  have  been  every- 

*  M'Lennan,  "The  Worship  of  Animals  and  Plants,"  Fortnightly 
Review,  N.  S.  Vol.  VI.  pp.  407-427,  562-582,  Vol.  VII.  pp.  194-216  ; 
Spencer,  **The  Origin  of  Animal  Worship,"  Id.  Vol.  VII.  pp.  535-550, 
reprinted  in  his  Recent  Discussions  in  Science,  etc.,  pp.  31  -  56. 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS. 


75 


where  the  oldest  systematized  form  of  fetichistic  religion. 
The  reverence  paid  to  the  chieftain  of  the  tribe  while 
living  was  continued  and  exaggerated  after  his  death. 
The  uncivilized  man  is  everywhere  incapable  of  grasping 
the  idea  of  death  as  it  is  apprehended  by  civilized  peo- 
ple. He  cannot  understand  that  a  man  should  pass  away 
so  as  to  be  no  longer  capable  of  communicating  with  his 
fellows.  The  image  of  his  dead  chief  or  comrade  remains 
in  his  mind,  and  the  savage's  philosophic  realism  far  sur- 
passes that  of  the  most  extravagant  mediaeval  schoolmen  ; 
to  him  the  persistence  of  the  idea  implies  the  persistence 
of  the  reality.  The  dead  man,  accordingly,  is  not  really 
dead ;  he  has  thrown  off'  his  body  like  a  husk,  yet  still 
retains  his  old  appearance,  and  often  shows  himself  to 
his  old  friends,  especially  after  nightfall.  He  is  no  doubt 
possessed  of  more  extensive  powers  than  before  his  trans- 
formation,* and  may  very  likely  have  a  share  in  regulat- 
ing the  weather,  gxanting  or  withholding  rain.  There- 
fore, argues  the  uncivilized  mind,  he  is  to  be  cajoled  and 
propitiated  more  sedulously  now  than  before  his  strange 
transformation. 

This  kind  of  worship  still  maintains  a  languid  exist- 
ence as  the  state  religion  of  China,  and  it  still  exists  as  a 

♦  Thus  is  explained  the  singular  conduct  of  the  Hindu,  who  slays 
himself  before  his  enemy's  door,  in  order  to  acquire  greater  power  of 
injuring  him.  "A  certain  Brahman,  on  whose  lands  a  Ksliatriya  raja 
had  built  a  house,  ripped  himself  up  in  revenge,  and  became  a  demon  of 
the  kind  called  Brahmadasyu,  who  has  been  ever  since  the  terror  of  the 
whole  country,  and  is  the  most  common  village-deity  in  Kharakpur. 
Toward  the  close  of  the  last  century  there  were  two  Brahmans,  out  of 
■whose  house  a  man  had  wrongfully,  as  they  thought,  taken  forty  rupees  ; 
whereupon  one  of  the  Brahmans  proceeded  to  cut  off  his  own  mother's 
head,  with  the  professed  view,  entertained  by  both  mother  and  son,  that 
her  spirit,  excited  by  the  beating  of  a  large  drum  during  forty  days, 
might  haunt,  torment,  and  pursue  to  death  the  taker  of  their  money  and 
those  concerned  with  him."    Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  Vol.  II.  p.  103. 


76 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


portion  of  Bralimanism ;  but  in  the  Vedic  religion  it  is 
to  be  seen  in  all  its  vigour  and  in  all  its  naive  simplicity. 
According  to  the  ancient  Aryan,  the  Pitris,  or  "  Fathers  " 
(Lat.  patres),  live  in  the  sky  along  with  Yama,  the  great 
original  Pitri  of  mankind.  This  first  man  came  down 
from  heaven  in  the  lightning,  and  back  to  heaven  both 
himself  and  all  his  offspring  must  have  gone.  There 
they  distribute  light  unto  men  below,  and  they  shine 
themselves  as  stars  ;  and  hence  the  Christianized  Ger- 
man peasant,  fifty  centuries  later,  tells  his  children  that 
the  stars  are  angels'  eyes,  and  the  English  cottager  im- 
presses it  on  the  youthful  mind  that  it  is  wicked  to 
point  at  the  stars,  though  why  he  cannot  tell.  But 
the  Pitris  aie  not  stars  only,  nor  do  they  content  them- 
selves with  idly  looking  down  on  the  affairs  of  men,  after 
the  fashion  of  the  laissez-faire  divinities  of  Lucretius. 
They  are,  on  the  contrary,  very  busy  with  the  weather ; 
they  send  rain,  thunder,  and  lightning ;  and  they  espe- 
cially delight  in  rushing  over  the  housetops  in  a  great 
gale  of  wind,  led  on  by  their  chief,  the  mysterious  hunts- 
man, Hermes  or  Odin. 

It  has  been  elsewhere  shown  that  the  howling  dog,  or 
wish-hound  of  Hermes,  wliose  appearance  under  the  win- 
dows of  a  sick  person  is  such  an  alarming  portent,  is 
merely  the  tempest  personified.  Throughout  all  Aryan 
mythology  the  souls  of  the  dead  are  supposed  to  ride  on 
the  night-wind,  with  their  howling  dogs,  gathering  into 
their  throng  the  souls  of  those  just  dying  as  they  pass  by 
their  houses.*  Sometimes  the  whole  complex  conception 
is  wrapped  up  in  the  notion  of  a  single  dog,  the  messen- 
ger of  the  god  of  shades,  who  comes  to  summon  the  de- 

*  Hence,  in  many  parts  of  Europe,  it  is  still  customary  to  open  the 
windows  when  a  person  dies,  in  order  that  the  soul  may  not  be  hindered 
in  joining  the  mystic  cavalcade. 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS. 


77 


parting  soul.  Sometimes,  instead  of  a  dog,  we  have  a 
great  ravening  wolf  who  comes  to  devour  its  victim  and 
extinguish  the  sunlight  of  life,  as  that  old  wolf  of  the 
tribe  of  Fenrir  devoured  little  Eed  Eiding-Hood  with  her 
robe  of  scarlet  twilight.*  Thus  we  arrive  at  a  true  were- 
wolf myth.  The  storm-wind,  or  howling  Eakshasa 
of  Hindu  folk-lore,  is  "  a  great  misshapen  giant  with  red 
beard  and  red  hair,  with  pointed  protruding  teeth,  ready  to 
lacerate  and  devour  human  flesh  ;  his  body  is  covered  with 
coarse,  bristHng  hair,  his  huge  mouth  is  open,  lie  looks 
from  side  to  side  as  he  walks,  lusting  after  the  flesh  and 
blood  of  men,  to  satisfy  his  raging  hunger  and  quench 
his  consuming  thirst.  Towards  nightfall  his  strength  in- 
creases manifold ;  he  can  change  his  shape  at  will ;  he 
haunts  the  woods,  and  roams  howling  through  the 
jungle."  t 

Now  if  the  storm-wind  is  a  host  of  Pitris,  or  one  great 
Pitri  who  appears  as  a  fearful  giant,  and  is  also  a  pack  of 
wolves  or  wish-hounds,  or  a  single  savage  dog  or  wolf, 
the  inference  is  obvious  to  the  mythopceic  mind  that  men 

*  The  story  of  little  Red  Eiding-Hood  is  "  mutilated  in  the  English 
version,  but  known  more  perfectly  by  old  wives  in  Germany,  who  can 
tell  that  the  lovely  little  maid  in  her  shining  red  satin  cloak  was  swal- 
lowed with  her  grandmother  by  the  wolf,  till  they  both  came  out  safe 
and  sound  when  the  hunter  cut  open  the  sleeping  beast."  Tylor,  Primi- 
tive Culture,  I.  307,  where  also  see  the  kindred  Russian  story  of  Vasi- 
lissa  the  Beautiful.  Compare  the  case  of  Tom  Thumb,  who  "  was  swal- 
lowed by  the  cow  and  came  out  unhurt "  ;  the  story  of  Saktideva  swal- 
lowed by  the  fish  and  cut  out  again,  in  Somadeva  Bhatta,  II.  118-184; 
and  the  story  of  Jonah  swallowed  by  the  whale,  in  the  Old  Testament. 
All  these  are  different  versions  of  the  same  myth,  and  refer  to  the  alter- 
nate swallowing  up  and  casting  forth  of  Day  by  Night,  which  is  com- 
monly personified  as  a  wolf,  and  now  and  then  as  a  great  fish.  Com- 
pare Grimm's  story  of  the  Wolf  and  Seven  Kids,  Tylor,  loc.  cit.,  and 
see  Early  History  of  Mankind,  p.  337  ;  Hardy,  Manual  of  Budhisra, 
p.  501. 

t  Baring-Gould,  Book  of  Werewolves,  p.  178  ;  Muir,  Sanskrit  Texts, 
II.  435. 


7» 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


may  become  wolves,  at  least  after  death.  And  to  the 
uncivilized  thinker  this  inference  is  strengthened,  as  Mr. 
Spencer  has  shown,  by  evidence  registered  on  his  own 
tribal  totem  or  heraldic  emblem.  The  bears  and  lions 
and  leopards  of  heraldry  are  the  degenerate  descendants 
of  the  totem  of  savagery  which  designated  the  tribe  by  a 
beast-symbol.  To  the  untutored  mind  there  is  every- 
thing in  a  name ;  and  the  descendant  of  Brown  Bear  or 
Yellow  Tiger  or  Silver  Hyasna  cannot  be  pronounced  un- 
faithful to  his  own  style  of  philosophizing,  if  he  regards 
his  ancestors,  who  career  about  his  hut  in  the  darkness 
of  night,  as  belonging  to  whatever  order  of  beasts  his 
totem  associations  may  suggest. 

Thus  we  not  only  see  a  ray  of  light  thrown  on  the  sub- 
ject of  metempsychosis,  but  we  get  a  glimpse  of  the 
curious  process  by  which  the  intensely  realistic  mind  of 
antiquity  arrived  at  the  notion  that  men  could  be  trans- 
formed into  beasts.  For  the  behef  that  the  soul  can 
temporarily  quit  the  body  during  lifetime  has  been  uni- 
versally entertained ;  and  from  the  conception  of  wolf- 
like ghosts  it  was  but  a  short  step  to  the  conception  of 
corporeal  w^erewolves.  In  the  Middle  Ages  the  phe- 
nomena of  trance  and  catalepsy  were  cited  in  proof  of  the 
theory  that  the  soul  can  leave  the  body  and  afterwards 
return  to  it.  Hence  it  was  very  difficult  for  a  person 
accused  of  witchcraft  to  prove  an  alibi;  for  to  any 
amount  of  evidence  showing  that  the  body  was  inno- 
cently reposing  at  home  and  in  bed,  the  rejoinder  was 
obvious  that  the  soul  may  nevertheless  have  been  in  at- 
tendance at  the  witches'  Sabbath  or  busied  in  maiming  a 
neighbour's  cattle.  According  to  one  mediaeval  notion, 
the  soul  of  the  werewolf  quit  its  human  body,  which  re- 
mained in  a  trance  until  its  return.* 

*  In  those  days  even  an  after-dinner  nap  seems  to  have  heen  thought 
uncanny.    See  Dasent,  Burnt  Njal,  I.  xxi. 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS,  JC^ 


The  mythological  basis  of  the  werewolf  superstition  is 
now,  I  believe,  sufficiently  indicated.  The  belief,  how- 
ever, did  not  reach  its  complete  development,  or  acquire 
its  most  horrible  features,  until  the  pagan  habits  of 
thought  which  had  originated  it  were  modified  by  con- 
tact with  Christian  theology.  To  the  ancient  there  was 
nothing  necessarily  diabolical  in  the  transformation  of  a 
man  into  a  beast.  But  Christianity,  which  retained  such 
a  host  of  pagan  conceptions  under  such  strange  disguises, 
which  degraded  the  "  All-father "  Odin  into  the  ogre  of 
the  castle  to  which  Jack  climbed  on  his  bean-stalk,  and 
which  blended  the  beneficent  lightning-god  Thor  and  the 
mischievous  Hermes  and  the  faun-like  Pan  into  the  gro- 
tesque Teutonic  Devil,  did  not  fail  to  impart  a  new  and 
fearful  character  to  the  belief  in  werewolves.  Lycan- 
thropy  became  regarded  as  a  species  of  witchcraft ;  the 
werewolf  was  supposed  to  have  obtained  his  peculiar 
powers  through  the  favour  or  connivance  of  the  Devil ; 
and  hundreds  of  persons  were  burned  alive  or  broken  on 
the  wheel  for  having  availed  themselves  of  the  privilege 
of  beast-metambrphosis.  The  superstition,  thus  widely 
extended  and  greatly  intensified,  was  confirmed  by  many 
singular  phenomena  which  cannot  be  omitted  from  any 
thorough  discussion  of  the  nature  and  causes  of  lycan- 
thropy. 

The  first  of  these  phenomena  is  the  Berserker  insanity, 
characteristic  of  Scandinavia,  but  not  unknown  in  other 
countries.  In  times  when  killing  one's  enemies  often 
formed  a  part  of  the  necessary  business  of  life,  persons 
were  frequently  found  who  killed  for  the  mere  love  of 
the  thing  ;  with  whom  slaughter  was  an  end  desirable  in 
itself,  not  merely  a  means  to  a  desirable  end.  What  the 
miser  is  in  an  age  which  worships  mammon,  such  was 
the  Berserker  in  an  age  when  the  current  idea  of  heaven 


So 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


was  that  of  a  place  where  people  could  hack  each  other  to 
pieces  through  all  eternity,  and  when  the  man  who  refused 
a  challenge  was  punished  with  confiscation  of  his  estates. 
With  these  Northmen,  in  the  ninth  century,  the  chief 
business  and  amusement  in  life  was  to  set  sail  for  some 
pleasant  country,  like  Spain  or  France,  and  make  all  the 
coasts  and  navigable  rivers  hideous  with  rapine  and  mas- 
sacre. "When  at  home,  in  the  intervals  between  their 
freebooting  expeditions,  they  were  liable  to  become  pos- 
sessed by  a  strange  homicidal  madness,  during  which  they 
would  array  themselves  in  the  skins  of  wolves  or  bears, 
and  sally  forth  by  night  to  crack  the  backbones,  smash 
the  skulls,  and  sometimes  to  drink  with  fiendish  glee  the 
blood  of  unwary  travellers  or  loiterers.  These  fits  of 
madness  were  usually  followed  by  periods  of  utter  ex- 
haustion and  nervous  depression.* 

Such,  according  to  the  unanimous  testimony  of  histo- 
rians, was  the  celebrated  "  Berserker  rage,"  not  peculiar 
to  the  Northland,  although  there  most  conspicuously 
manifested.  Taking  now  a  step  in  advance,  we  find  that 
in  comparatively  civilized  countries  there  have  been 
many  cases  of  monstrous  homicidal  insanity.  The  two 
most  celebrated  cases,  among  those  collected  by  Mr.  Bar- 
ing-Gould, are  those  of  the  Mar^chal  de  Eetz,  in  1440, 
and  of  Elizabeth,  a  Hungarian  countess,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century.  The  Countess  Elizabeth  enticed  young 
girls  into  her  palace  on  divers  pretexts,  and  then  coolly 
murdered  them,  for  the  purpose  of  bathing  in  their  blood. 
The  spectacle  of  human  suffering  became  at  last  such 

*  See  Dasent,  Burnt  Njal,  Vol.  I.  p.  xxii.  ;  Grettis  Saga,  by  Mag- 
nussoii  and  Morris,  chap.  xix.  ;  Viga  Glum's  Saga,  by  Sir  Ednmnd 
Head,  p.  13,  note,  where  the  Berserkers  are  said  to  have  maddened 
themselves  with  drugs.  Dasent  compares  them  with  the  Malays,  who 
work  themselves  into  a  frenzy  by  means  of  arrack,  or  hasheesh,  and  run 
amuck. 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS.  8 1 

a  delight  to  her,  that  she  would  apply  with  her  own 
hands  the  most  excruciating  tortures,  relishing  the 
shrieks  of  her  victims  as  the  epicure  relishes  each  sip 
of  his  old  Chateau  Margaux.  In  this  way  she  is 
said  to  have  murdered  six  hundred  and  fifty  persons 
before  her  evil  career  was  brought  to  an  end ;  though, 
when  one  recollects  the  famous  men  in  buckram  and  the 
notorious  trio  of  crows,  one  is  inclined  to  strike  off  a 
cipher,  and  regard  sixty-five  as  a  sufficiently  imposing 
and  far  less  improbable  number.  But  the  case  of  the 
Mar^chal  de  Eetz  is  still  more  frightful.  A  marshal  of 
France,  a  scholarly  man,  a  patriot,  and  a  man  of  holy  life, 
he  became  suddenly  possessed  by  an  uncontrollable  desire 
to  murder  children.  During  seven  years  he  continued  to 
inveigle  little  boys  and  girls  into  his  castle,  at  the  rate 
of  about  two  each  week,  (?)  and  then  put  them  to  death  in 
various  ways,  that  he  might  witness  their  agonies  and 
bathe  in  their  blood ;  experiencing  after  each  occasion 
the  most  dreadful  remorse,  but  led  on  by  an  irresistible 
craving  to  repeat  the  crime.  When  this  unparalleled  ini- 
quity was  finally  brouglit  to  light,  tlie  castle  was  found 
to  contain  bins  full  of  children's  bones.  The  horrible 
details  of  the  trial  are  to  be  found  in  the  histories  of 
France  by  Michelet  and  Martin. 

Going  a  step  further,  we  find  cases  in  which  the  pro- 
pensity to  murder  has  been  accompanied  by  cannibalism. 
In  1598  a  tailor  of  Chalons  was  sentenced  by  the  par- 
liament of  Paris  to  be  burned  alive  for  lycanthropy. 
"  This  wretched  man  had  decoyed  children  into  his  shop, 
or  attacked  them  in  the  gloaming  when  they  strayed  in 
the  woods,  had  torn  them  with  his  teeth  and  killed  them, 
after  which  he  seems  calmly  to  have  dressed  their  flesh 
as  ordinary  meat,  and  to  have  eaten  it  with  a  great  relish. 
The  number  of  little  innocents  whom  he  destroyed  is  un- 


82 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


known.  A  "whole  caskful  of  bones  was  discovered  in  Ida 
house."  *  About  1850  a  beggar  in  the  village  of  Polomyia, 
in  Galicia,  v/as  proved  to  have  killed  and  eaten  fourteen 
children.  A  house  had  one  day  caught  fire  and  burnt  to 
the  ground,  roasting  one  of  the  inmates,  who  was  unable 
to  escape.  The  beggar  passed  by  soon  after,  and,  as  he  was 
suffering  from  excessive  hunger,  could  not  resist  the  temp- 
tation of  making  a  meal  off  the  charred  body.  From  that 
moment  he  was  tormented  by  a  craving  for  human  flesh. 
He  met  a  little  orphan  girl,  about  nine  years  old,  and  giv- 
ing her  a  pinchbeck  ring  told  her  to  seek  for  others  like 
it  under  a  tree  in  the  neighbouring  wood.  She  was  slain, 
carried  to  the  beggar's  hovel,  and  eaten.  In  the  course 
of  three  years  thirteen  other  children  mysteriously  dis- 
appeared, but  no  one  knew  whom  to  suspect.  At  last  an 
innkeeper  missed  a  pair  'of  ducks,  and  having  no  good 
opinion  of  this  beggar's  honesty,  went  unexpectedly  to 
his  cabin,  burst  suddenly  in  at  the  door,  and  to  his  hor- 
ror found  him  in  the  act  of  hiding  under  his  cloak  a 
severed  head  ;  a  bowl  of  fresh  blood  stood  under  the 
oven,  and  pieces  of  a  thigh  were  cooking  over  the  fire.*I* 

This  occurred  only  about  twenty  years  ago,  and  the 
criminal,  though  ruled  by  an  insane  appetite,  is  not 
known  to  have  been  subject  to  any  mental  delusion. 
But  there  have  been  a  great  many  similar  cases,  in  which 
the  homicidal  or  cannibal  craving  has  been  accompanied 
by  genuine  hallucination.  Forms  of  insanity  in  which 
the  afflicted  persons  imagine  themselves  to  be  brute  ani- 
mals are  not  perhaps  very  common,  but  they  are  not  un- 
known. I  once  knew  a  poor  demented  old  man  who 
believed  himself  to  be  a  horse,  and  would  stand  by  the 
hour  together  before  a  manger,  nibbling  hay,  or  deluding 

*  Baring-Gould,  Werewolves,  p.  81. 
t  Baring-Gould,  op.  cit.  chap.  xiv. 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN  MAIDENS.  83 

himself  with  the  pretence  of  so  doing.  Many  of  the 
cannibals  whose  cases  are  related  by  Mr.  Baring-Gould, 
in  his  chapter  of  horrors,  actually  believed  themselves 
to  have  been  transformed  into  wolves  or  other  wild  ani- 
mals. Jean  Grenier  was  a  boy  of  thirteen,  partially 
idiotic,  and  of  strongly  marked  canine  physiognomy ;  his 
jaws  were  large  and  projected  forward,  and  his  canine 
teeth  were  unnaturally  long,  so  as  to  protrude  beyond  the 
lower  lip.  He  believed  himself  to  be  a  werewolf.  One 
evening,  meeting  half  a  dozen  young  girls,  he  scared 
them  out  of  their  wits  by  telling  them  that  as  soon  as 
the  sun  liad  set  he  would  turn  into  a  wolf  and  eat  them 
for  supper.  A  few  days  later,  one  little  girl,  having  gone 
out  at  nightfall  to  look  after  the  sheep,  was  attacked  by 
some  creature  which  in  her  terror  she  mistook  for  a  wolf, 
but  which  afterwards  proved  to  be  none  other  than  Jean 
Grenier.  She  beat  him  off'  with  her  sheep-staff',  and  fled 
home.  As  several  children  had  mysteriously  disappeared 
from  the  neighbourhood,  Grenier  was  at  once  suspected. 
Being  brought  before  the  parliament  of  Bordeaux,  he 
stated  that  two  years  ago  he  had  met  the  Devil  one  night 
in  the  woods  and  had  signed  a  compact  with  him  and 
received  from  him  a  wolf-skin.  Since  then  he  had 
roamed  about  as  a  wolf  after  dark,  resuming  his  human 
shape  by  daylight.  He  had  killed  and  eaten  several 
children  whom  he  had  found  alone  in  the  fields,  and  on 
one  occasion  he  had  entered  a  house  while  the  family 
were  out  and  taken  the  baby  from  its  cradle.  A  careful 
investigation  proved  the  truth  of  these  statements,  so  far 
as  the  cannibalism  was  concerned.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  missing  children  were  eaten  by  Jean  Grenier, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  in  his  own  mind  the  half- 
witted boy  was  firmly  convinced  that  he  was  a  wolf. 
Here  the  lycanthropy  was  complete. 


84 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


In  the  year  1598,  "  in  a  wild  and  unfrequented  spot 
near  Caude,  some  countrymen  came  one  day  upon  the 
corpse  of  a  boy  of  fifteen,  horribly  mutilated  and  bespat- 
tered with  blood.  As  the  men  approached,  two  wolves, 
which  had  been  rending  the  body,  bounded  away  into 
the  thicket.  The  men  gave  chase  immediately,  following 
their  bloody  tracks  till  they  lost  them ;  when,  suddenly 
crouching  among  the  bushes,  his  teeth  chattering  with 
fear,  they  found  a  man  half  naked,  with  long  hair  and 
beard,  and  with  his  hands  dyed  in  blood.  His  nails  were 
long  as  claws,  and  were  clotted  with  fresh  gore  and  shreds 
of  human  flesh."  * 

This  man,  Jacques  Eoulet,  was  a  poor,  half-witted 
creature  under  the  dominion  of  a  cannibal  appetite.  He 
was  employed  in  tearing  to  pieces  the  corpse  of  the  boy 
when  these  countrymen  came  up.  Whether  there  were 
any  wolves  in  the  case,  except  what  the  excited  imagina- 
tions of  the  men  may  have  conjured  up,  I  will  not  pre- 
sume to  determine ;  but  it  is  certain  that  Eoulet  sup- 
posed himself  to  be  a  wolf,  and  killed  and  ate  several 
persons  under  the  influence  of  the  delusion.  He  was 
sentenced  to  death,  but  the  parliament  of  Paris  reversed 
the  sentence,  and  charitably  shut  him  up  in  a  madhouse. 

The  annals  of  the  Middle  Ages  furnish  many  cases 
similar  to  these  of  Grenier  and  Eoulet.  Their  share  in 
maintaining  the  werewolf  superstition  is  undeniable ; 
but  modern  science  finds  in  them  nothing  that  cannot  be 
readily  explained.  That  stupendous  process  of  breeding, 
which  we  call  civilization,  has  been  for  long  ages  strength- 
ening those  kindly  social  feelings  by  the  possession  of 
which  we  are  chiefly  distinguished  from  the  brutes,  leav- 
ing our  primitive  bestial  impulses  to  die  for  want  of 
exercise,  or  checking  in  every  possible  way  their  further 

♦  Baring- Gould,  op.  cit.  p.  82. 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS,  85 


expansion  by  legislative  enactments.    But  this  process, 
which  is  transforming  us  from  savages  into  civilized 
men,  is  a  very  slow  one ;  and  now  and  then  there  occur 
cases  of  what  physiologists  call  atavism,  or  reversion  to 
an  ancestral  type  of  character.    Now  and  then  persons 
are  born,  in  civilized  countries,  whose  intellectual  powers 
are  on  a  level  with  those  of  the  most  degraded  Austra- 
lian savage,  and  these  we  call  idiots.    And  now  and 
then  persons  are  born  possessed  of  the  bestial  appetites 
and  cravings  of  primitive  man,  his  fiendish  cruelty  and 
his  liking  for  human  flesh.    Modern  physiology  knows 
how  to  classify  and  explain  these  abnormal  cases,  but 
to  the  unscientific  mediaeval  mind  they  were  explicable 
only  on  the  hypothesis  of  a  diabolical  metamorphosis. 
And  there  is  nothing  strange  in  the  fact  that,  in  an  age 
when  the  prevailing  habits  of  thought  rendered  the 
transformation  of  men  into  beasts  an  easily  admissible 
notion,  these  monsters  of  cruelty  and  depraved  appetite 
should  have  been  regarded  af?  capable  of  taking  on  bestial 
forms.    Nor  is  it  strange  that  the  hallucination  under 
which  these  unfortunate  wretches  laboured  should  have 
taken  such  a  shape  as  to  account  to  their  feeble  intelli- 
gence for  the  existence  of  the  appetites  which  they  were 
conscious  of  not  sharing  with  their  neighbours  and  con- 
temporaries.   If  a  myth  is  a  piece  of  unscientific  philoso- 
phizing, it  must  sometimes  be  applied  to  the  explanation 
of  obscure  psychological  as  well  as  of  physical  phenom- 
ena.   Where  the  modern  calmly  taps  his  forehead  and 
says,  "  Arrested  development,"  the  terrified  ancient  made 
the  sign  of  the  cross  and  cried,  "  Werewolf." 

We  shall  be  assisted  in  this  explanation  by  turning 
aside  for  a  moment  to  examine  the  wild  superstitions 
about  "  changelings,"  which  contributed,  along  with  so 
many  others,  to  make  the  lives  of  our  ancestors  anxious 


86 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS, 


and  miserable.  These  superstitions  were  for  the  most 
part  attempts  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  insanity, 
epilepsy,  and  other  obscure  nervous  diseases.  A  man 
wlio  has  hitherto  enjoyed  perfect  health,  and  whose  ac- 
tions have  been  consistent  and  rational,  suddenly  loses 
all  self-control  and  seems  actuated  by  a  will  foreign  to 
himself.  Modern  science  possesses  the  key  to  this  phe- 
nomenon ;  but  in  former  times  it  was  explicable  only  on 
the  hypothesis  that  a  demon  had  entered  the  body  of  the 
lunatic,  or  else  that  the  fairies  had  stolen  the  real  man 
and  substituted  for  him  a  diabolical  phantom  exactly  like 
him  in  stature  and  features.  Hence  the  numerous  le- 
gends of  changelings,  some  of  which  are  very  curious. 
In  Irish  folk-lore  we  find  the  story  of  one  Kickard,  sur- 
named  the  Rake,  from  his  worthless  character.  A  good- 
natured,  idle  fellow,  he  spent  all  his  evenings  in  dancing, 
—  an  accomplishment  in  which  no  one  in  the  village 
could  rival  him.  One  night,  in  the  midst  of  a  lively  reel, 
he  fell  down  in  a  fit.  "  He 's  struck  with  a  fairy-dart," 
exclaimed  all  the  friends,  and  they  carried  him  home  and 
nursed  him ;  but  his  face  grew  so  thin  and  his  manner 
so  morose  that  by  and  by  all  began  to  suspect  that  the 
true  Rickard  was  gone  and  a  changeling  put  in  his  place. 
Rickard,  with  all  his  accomplishments,  was  no  musician ; 
and  so,  in  order  to  put  the  matter  to  a  crucial  test,  a  bag- 
pipe was  left  in  the  room  by  the  side  of  his  bed.  The 
trick  succeeded.  One  hot  summer's  day,  when  all  were 
supposed  to  be  in  the  field  making  hay,  some  members 
of  the  family  secreted  in  a  clothes-press  saw  the  bedroom 
door  open  a  little  way,  and  a  lean,  foxy  face,  with  a  pair 
of  deep-sunken  eyes,  peer  anxiously  about  the  premises. 
Having  satisfied  itself  that  the  coast  was  clear,  the  face 
withdrew,  the  door  was  closed,  and  presently  such  ravish- 
ing strains  of  music  were  heard  as  never  proceeded  from 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS. 


87 


a  bagpipe  before  or  since  that  day.  Soon  was  heard  the 
rustle  of  innumerable  fairies,  come  to  dance  to  the 
changeling's  music.  Then  the  "  fairy-man  "  of  the  vil- 
lage, who  was  keeping  watch  with  the  family,  heated  a 
pair  of  tongs  red-hot,  and  with  deafening  shouts  all 
burst  at  once  into  the  sick-chamber.  The  music  had 
ceased  and  the  room  was  empty,  but  in  at  the  window 
glared  a  fiendish  face,  with  such  fearful  looks  of  hatred, 
that  for  a  moment  all  stood  motionless  with  terror.  But 
when  the  fairy-man,  recovering  himself,  advanced  with 
the  hot  tongs  to  pinch  its  nose,  it  vanished  with  an  un- 
earthly yell,  and  there  on  the  bed  was  Kickard,  safe  and 
sound,  and  cured  of  his  epilepsy.* 

Comparing  this  legend  with  numerous  others  relating 
to  changelings,  and  stripping  off  the  fantastic  garb  of 
fairy-lore  with  which  popular  imagination  has  invested 
them,  it  seems  impossible  to  doubt  that  they  have  arisen 
from  myths  devised  for  the  purpose  of  explaining  the 
obscure  phenomena  of  mental  disease.  If  this  be  so, 
they  afford  an  excellent  collateral  illustration  of  the  be- 
lief in  werewolves.  The  same  mental  habits  which  led 
men  to  regard  the  insane  or  epileptic  person  as  a  change- 
ling, and  which  allowed  them  to  explain  catalepsy  as  the 
temporary  departure  of  a  witch's  soul  from  its  body, 
would  enable  them  to  attribute  a  wolf's  nature  to  tlie 
maniac  or  idiot  with  cannibal  appetites.  And  when  the 
myth-forming  process  had  got  thus  far,  it  would  not  stop 
short  of  assigning  to  the  unfortunate  wretch  a  tangible 
lupine  body  ;  for  all  ancient  mythology  teemed  with  pre- 
cedents for  such  a  transformation. 

It  remains  for  us  to  sum  up,  —  to  tie  into  a  bunch  the 
keys  which  have  helped  us  to  penetrate  into  the  secret 
causes  of  the  werewolf  superstition     In  a  previous 

♦  Kennedy,  Fictions  of  the  Irish  Celts,  p.  90. 


88 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


paper  we  saw  what  a  host  of  myths,  fairy-tales,  and 
superstitious  observances  have  sprung  from  attempts  to 
interpret  one  simple  natural  phenomenon,  —  the  descent 
of  fire  from  the  clouds.  Here,  on  the  other  hand,  we  see 
what  a  heterogeneous  multitude  of  mythical  elements 
may  combine  to  build  up  in  course  of  time  a  single  enor- 
mous superstition,  and  we  see  how  curiously  fact  and 
fancy  have  co-operated  in  keeping  the  superstition  from 
falling.  In  the  first  place  the  worship  of  dead  ancestors 
with  wolf  totems  originated  the  notion  of  the  transforma- 
tion of  men  into  divine  or  superhuman  wolves  ;  and  this 
notion  was  confirmed  by  the  ambiguous  explanation  of 
the  storm-wind  as  the  rushing  of  a  troop  of  dead  men's 
souls  or  as  the  howling  of  wolf-like  monsters.  Mediaeval 
Christianity  retained  these  conceptions,  merely  changing 
the  superhuman  wolves  into  evil  demons  ;  and  finally  the 
occurrence  of  cases  of  Berserker  madness  and  cannibal- 
ism, accompanied  by  lycanthropic  hallucinations,  being 
interpreted  as  due  to  such  demoniacal  metamorphosis, 
gave  rise  to  the  werewolf  superstition  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  etymological  proceedings,  to  which  Mr.  Cox 
would  incontinently  ascribe  the  origin  of  the  entire 
superstition,  seemed  to  me  to  have  played  a  very  subor- 
dinate part  in  the  matter.  To  suppose  that  Jean  Grenier 
imagined  himself  to  be  a  wolf,  because  the  Greek  word 
for  wolf  sounded  like  the  word  for  light,  and  thus  gave 
rise  to  the  story  of  a  light-deity  who  became  a  wolf, 
seems  to  me  quite  inadmissible.  Yet  as  far  as  such  ver- 
bal equivocations  may  have  prevailed,  they  doubtless 
helped  to  sustain  the  delusion. 

Thus  we  need  no  longer  regard  our  werewolf  as  an 
inexplicable  creature  of  undetermined  pedigree.  But  any 
account  of  him  would  be  quite  imperfect  which  should 
omit  all  consideration  of  the  methods  by  which  his 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS.  89 


change  of  form  was  accomplished.  By  the  ancient 
Eomans  the  werewolf  was  commonly  called  a  "  skin- 
changer  "  or  "  turn-coat "  (versipellis),  and  similar  epithets 
were  applied  to  him  in  the  Middle  Ages  The  mediaeval 
theory  was  that,  while  the  werewolf  kept  his  human  form, 
his  hair  grew  inwards  ;  when  he  wished  to  become  a  wolf, 
he  simply  turned  himself  inside  out.  In  many  trials  on 
record,  the  prisoners  were  closely  interrogated  as  to  how 
this  inversion  might  be  accomplished ;  but  I  am  not  aware 
that  any  one  of  them  ever  gave  a  satisfactory  answer. 
At  the  moment  of  change  their  memories  seem  to  have 
become  temporarily  befogged.  Now  and  then  a  poor 
wretch  had  his  arms  and  legs  cut  off,  or  was  partially 
flayed,  in  order  that  the  ingrowing  hair  might  be  de- 
tected.* Another  theory  was,  that  the  possessed  person 
had  merely  to  put  on  a  wolf's  skin,  in  order  to  assume 
instantly  the  lupine  form  and  character ;  and  in  this  may 
perhaps  be  seen  a  vague  reminiscence  of  the  alleged  fact 
that  Berserkers  were  in  the  habit  of  haunting  the  woods 
by  night,  clothed  in  the  hides  of  wolves  or  bears.f  Such 

*  "En  1541,  k  Padoue,  dit  Wier,  un  homme  qui  se  croyait  change  en 
loup  courait  la  campagne,  attaquant  et  mettant  k  mort  ceux  qu'il  rencon- 
trait.  Apres  bien  des  difficultes,  on  parvint  s'emparer  de  lui.  II  dit 
en  confidence  a  ceux  qui  I'arreterent  :  Je  suis  vraiment  un  loup,  et  si 
ma  peau  ne  parait  pas  etre  celle  d'un  loup,  c'est  parce  qu'elle  est  retour- 
nee  et  que  les  poils  sont  en  dedans.  —  Pour  s' assurer  du  fait,  on  coupa 
le  malheureux  aux  differentes  parties  du  corps,  on  lui  emporta  les  bras 
et  les  jambes.". —  Taine,  De  I'lntelligence,  Tom.  II.  p.  203.  See  the 
account  of  Slavonic  werewolves  in  Ralston,  Songs  of  the  Russian  Peo- 
ple, pp.  404-418. 

+  Mr.  Cox,  whose  scepticism  on  obscure  points  in  history  rather  sur- 
passes that  of  Sir  G.  C,  Lewis,  dismisses  with  a  sneer  the  subject  of  the 
Berserker  madness,  observing  that  ' '  the  unanimous  testimony  of  the 
Norse  historians  is  worth  as  much  and  as  little  as  the  convictions  of 
Glanvil  and  Hale  on  the  reality  of  witchcraft."  I  have  not  the  special 
knowledge  requisite  for  pronouncing  an  opinion  on  this  point,  but  Mr. 
Cox's  ordinary  methods  of  disposing  of  such  questions  are  not  such  as 


90 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKEBS. 


a  wolfskin  was  kept  by  the  boy  Grenier.  Eoulet,  on  the 
other  hand,  confessed  to  using  a  magic  salve  or  ointment. 
A  fourth  method  of  becoming  a  werewolf  was  to  obtain 
a  girdle,  usually  made  of  human  skin.  Several  cases  are 
related  in  Thorpe's  "  Northern  Mythology."  One  hot  day 
in  harvest-time  some  reapers  lay  down  to  sleep  in  the 
shade ;  when  one  of  them,  who  could  not  sleep,  saw  the 
man  next  him  arise  quietly  and  gird  him  with  a  strap, 
whereupon  he  instantly  vanished,  and  a  wolf  jumped  up 
from  among  the  sleepers  and  ran  off  across  the  fields. 
Another  man,  who  possessed  such  a  girdle,  once  went 
away  from  home  without  remembering  to  lock  it  up. 
His  little  son  climbed  up  to  the  cupboard  and  got  it,  and 
as  he  proceeded  to  buckle  it  around  his  waist,  he  became 
instantly  transformed  into  a  strange-looking  beast.  Just 
then  his  father  came  in,  and  seizing  the  girdle  restored 
the  child  to  his  natural  shape.  The  boy  said  that  no 
sooner  had  he  buckled  it  on  than  he  was  tormented  with 
a  raging  hunger. 

Sometimes  the  werewolf  transformation  led  to  unlucky 
accidents.  At  Caseburg,  as  a  man  and  his  wife  were 
making  hay,  the  woman  threw  down  her  pitchfork  and 
went  away,  telling  her  husband  that  if  a  wild  beast 
should  come  to  him  during  her  absence  he  must  throw 
his  hat  at  it.  Presently  a  she-wolf  rushed  towards  him. 
The  man  threw  his  hat  at  it,  but  a  boy  came  up  from 
another  part  of  the  field  and  stabbed  the  animal  with 
his  pitchfork,  whereupon  it  vanished,  and  the  woman's 
dead  body  lay  at  his  feet. 

A  parallel  legend  shows  that  this  woman  wished  to 

to  make  one  feel  obliged  to  accept  his  bare  assertion,  unaccompanied  by 
critical  arguments.  The  madness  of  the  bearsarks  may,  no  doubt,  be 
the  same  thing  as  the  frenzy  of  Herakles  ;  but  something  more  than 
mere  dogmatism  is  needed  to  prove  it. 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS. 


91 


have  the  hat  thrown  at  her,  in  order  that  slie  might  be 
hencefortli  free  from  her  liabiHty  to  become  a  werewolf. 
A  man  was  one  night  returning  with  his  wife  from  a 
merry-making  when  he  felt  the  change  coming  on.  Giv- 
ing his  wife  the  reins,  he  jumped  from  the  wagon,  telling 
her  to  strike  with  her  apron  at  any  animal  which  might 
come  to  her.  In  a  few  moments  a  wolf  ran  up  to  the 
side  of  the  vehicle,  and,  as  the  woman  stmck  out  with 
her  apron,  it  bit  off  a  piece  and  ran  away.  Presently 
the  man  returned  with  the  piece  of  apron  in  his  mouth, 
and  consoled  his  terrified  wife  with  the  information  that 
the  enchantment  had  left  him  forever. 

A  terrible  case  at  a  village  in  Auvergne  has  found  its 
way  into  the  annals  of  witchcraft.  "  A  gentleman  while 
hunting  was  suddenly  attacked  by  a  savage  wolf  of  mon- 
strous size.  Impenetrable  by  his  shot,  the  beast  made  a 
spring  upon  the  helpless  huntsman,  who  in  the  struggle 
luckily,  or  unluckily  for  the  unfortunate  lady,  contrived 
to  cut  off  one  of  its  fore-paws.  This  trophy  he  placed 
in  his  pocket,  and  made  the  best  of  his  way  homewards 
in  safety.  On  the  road  he  met  a  friend,  to  whom  he 
exhibited  a  bleeding  paw,  or  rather  (as  it  now  appeared) 
a  woman's  hand,  upon  which  was  a  wedding-ring.  His 
wife's  ring  was  at  once  recognized  by  the  other.  His 
suspicions  aroused,  he  immediately  went  in  search  of  his 
wife,  who  was  found  sitting  by  the  fire  in  the  kitchen, 
her  arm  hidden  beneath  her  apron,  when  the  husband, 
seizing  her  by  the  arm,  found  his  terrible  suspicions  veri- 
fied. The  bleeding  stump  was  there,  evidently  just  fresh 
from  the  wound.  She  was  given  into  custody,  and  in 
the  event  was  burned  at  Eiom,  in  presence  of  thousands 
of  spectators."  * 

*  Williams,  Superstitions  of  Witchcraft,  p.  179.  See  a  parallel  case  of  a 
cat- woman,  in  Thorpe's  Northern  Mythology,  II.  26.    "  Certain  witches 


92 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


Sometimes  a  werewolf  was  cured  merely  by  recogniz- 
ing him  while  in  his  brute  shape.  A  Swedish  legend 
tells  of  a  cottager  who,  on  entering  the  forest  one  day 
without  recollecting  to  say  his  Pater  Noster,  got  into  the 
power  of  a  Troll,  who  changed  him  into  a  wolf  For 
many  years  his  wife  mourned  him  as  dead.  But  one 
Christmas  eve  the  old  Troll,  disguised  as  a  beggar- 
woman,  came  to  the  house  for  alms  ;  and  being  taken  in 
and  kindly  treated,  told  the  woman  that  her  husband 
might  very  likely  appear  to  her  in  wolf-shape.  Going  at 
night  to  the  pantry  to  lay  aside  a  joint  of  meat  for  to- 
morrow's dinner,  she  saw  a  wolf  standing  with  its  paws 
on  the  window-sill,  looking  wistfully  in  at  her.  "Ah, 
dearest,"  said  she,  "  if  I  knew  that  thou  wert  really  my 
husband,  I  would  give  thee  a  bone."  Whereupon  the 
wolf-skin  fell  off,  and  her  husband  stood  before  her  in 
the  same  old  clothes  which  he  had  on  the  day  that  the 
Troll  got  hold  of  him. 

In  Denmark  it  was  believed  that  if  a  woman  were  to 
creep  through  a  colt's  placental  membrane  stretched  be- 
tween four  sticks,  she  would  for  the  rest  of  her  life  bring 
forth  children  without  pain  or  illness ;  but  all  the  boys 
would  in  such  case  be  werewolves,  and  all  the  girls 
Maras,  or  nightmares.  In  this  grotesque  superstition 
appears  that  curious  kinship  between  the  werewolf  and 
the  wife  or  maiden  of  supernatural  race,  which  serves 
admirably  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  both  conceptions, 
and  the  elucidation  of  which  shall  occupy  us  throughout 
the  remainder  of  this  paper. 

at  Thurso  for  a  long  time  tormented  an  honest  fellow  under  the  usual 
form  of  cats,  till  one  night  he  put  them  to  flight  with  his  broadsword, 
and  cut  off  the  leg  of  one  less  nimble  than  the  rest  ;  taking  it  up,  to  his 
amazement  he  found  it  to  be  a  woman's  leg,  and  next  morning  he  discov- 
ered the  old  hag  its  owner  with  but  one  leg  left."  —  Tylor,  Primitive 
Culture,  I.  283. 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS.  93 


It  is,  perhaps,  needless  to  state  that  in  the  personality 
of  the  nightmare,  or  Mara,  there  was  nothing  equine. 
The  Mara  was  a  female  demon,*  who  would  come  at 
night  and  torment  men  or  women  by  crouching  on  their 
chests  or  stomachs  and  stopping  their  respiration.  The 
scene  is  well  enough  represented  in  Fuseli's  picture, 
though  the  frenzied-looking  horse  which  there  accom- 
panies the  demon  has  no  place  in  the  original  supersti- 
tion. A  Netherlandish  story  illustrates  the  character  of 
the  Mara.  Two  young  men  were  in  love  with  the  same 
damsel.  One  of  them,  being  tormented  every  night  by 
a  Mara,  sought  advice  from  his  rival,  and  it  was  a  treach- 
erous counsel  that  he  got.  "  Hold  a  sharp  knife  with  the 
point  towards  your  breast,  and  you  '11  never  see  the  Mara 
again,"  said  this  false  friend.  The  lad  thanked  him,  but 
when  he  lay  down  to  rest  he  thought  it  as  well  to  be  on 
the  safe  side,  and  so  held  the  knife  handle  downward. 
So  when  the  Mara  came,  instead  of  forcing  the  blade  into 
his  breast,  she  cut  herself  badly,  and  fled  howling ;  and 
let  us  hope,  though  the  legend  here  leaves  us  in  the  dark, 
that  this  poor  youth,  who  is  said  to  have  been  the  come- 
lier  of  the  two,  revenged  himself  on  his  malicious  rival 
by  marrying  the  young  lady. 

But  the  Mara  sometimes  appeared  in  less  revolting 
shape,  and  became  the  mistress  or  even  the  wife  of  some 
mortal  man  to  whom  she  happened  to  take  a  fancy.  In 
such  cases  she  would  vanish  on  being  recognized.  There 
is  a  well-told  monkish  tale  of  a  pious  knight  who,  jour- 
neying one  day  through  the  forest,  found  a  beautiful  lady 
stripped  naked  and  tied  to  a  tree,  her  back  all  covered 
with  deep  gashes  streaming  with  blood,  from  a  flogging 

*  "The  mare  in  niglitmare  means  spirit,  elf,  or  nymph;  compare 
Anglo-Saxon  wudumccre  (wood-mare)  =  echo." — Tylor,  Primitive  Cul* 
ture,  Vol.  II.  p.  173. 


94 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


which  some  bandits  had  given  her.  Of  course  he  took 
her  home  to  his  castle  and  married  her,  and  for  a  while 
they  lived  very  happily  together,  and  the  fame  of  the 
lady's  beauty  was  so  great  that  kings  and  emperors  held 
tournaments  in  honor  of  her.  But  this  pious  knight 
used  to  go  to  mass  every  Sunday,  and  greatly  was  he 
scandalized  when  he  found  that  his  wife  would  never 
stay  to  assist  in  the  Credo,  but  would  always  get  up  and 
walk  out  of  church  just  as  the  choir  struck  up.  All 
her  husband's  coaxing  was  of  no  use ;  threats  and  en- 
treaties were  alike  powerless  even  to  elicit  an  explana- 
tion of  this  strange  conduct.  At  last  the  good  man  de- 
termined to  use  force ;  and  so  one  Sunday,  as  the  lady 
got  up  to  go  out,  according  to  custom,  he  seized  her  by 
the  arm  and  sternly  commanded  her  to  remain.  Her 
whole  frame  was  suddenly  convulsed,  and  her  dark  eyes 
gleamed  with  weird,  unearthly  brilliancy.  The  services 
paused  for  a  moment,  and  all  eyes  were  turned  toward 
the  knight  and  his  lady.  "  In  God's  name,  tell  me  what 
thou  art,"  shouted  the  knight ;  and  instantly,  says  the 
chronicler,  "  the  bodily  form  of  the  lady  melted  away, 
and  was  seen  no  more  ;  whilst,  with  a  cry  of  anguish  and 
of  terror,  an  evil  spirit  of  monstrous  form  rose  from  the 
ground,  clave  the  chapel  roof  asunder,  and  disappeared  in 
the  air." 

In  a  Danish  legend,  the  Mara  betrays  her  affinity  to 
the  Nixies,  or  Swan-maidens.  A  peasant  discovered  that 
his  sweetheart  was  in  the  habit  of  coming  to  him  by 
night  as  a  Mara.  He  kept  strict  watch  until  he  dis- 
covered her  creeping  into  the  room  through  a  small 
knot-hole  in  the  door.  Next  day  he  made  a  peg,  and 
after  she  had  come  to  him,  drove  in  the  peg  so  that  she 
was  unable  to  escape.  They  were  married  and  lived  to- 
gether many  years ;  but  one  night  it  happened  that  the 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS.  95 


man,  joking  with  his  wife  about  the  way  in  which  he  had 
secured  her,  drew  the  peg  from  the  knot-hole,  that  she 
might  see  how  she  had  entered  his  room.  As  she  peeped 
through,  she  became  suddenly  quite  small,  passed  out, 
and  was  never  seen  again. 

The  well-known  pathological  phenomena  of  nightmare 
are  sufficient  to  account  for  the  mediaeval  theory  of  a 
fiend  who  sits  upon  one's  bosom  and  hinders  respiration ; 
but  as  we  compare  these  various  legends  relating  to  the 
Mara,  we  see  that  a  more  recondite  explanation  is  needed 
to  account  for  all  her  peculiarities.  Indigestion  may 
interfere  with  our  breathing,  but  it  does  not  make  beau- 
tiful women  crawl  through  keyholes,  nor  does  it  bring 
wives  from  the  spirit-world.  The  Mara  belongs  to  an 
ancient  family,  and  in  passing  from  the  regions  of  monk- 
ish superstition  to  those  of  pure  mythology  we  find  that, 
like  her  kinsman  the  werewolf,  she  had  once  seen  better 
days.  Christianity  made  a  demon  of  the  Mara,  and  adopted 
the  theory  that  Satan  employed  these  seductive  creatures 
as  agents  for  ruining  human  souls.  Sucli  is  the  character 
of  the  knight's  wife,  in  the  monkish  legend  just  cited.  But 
in  the  Danish  tale  the  Mara  appears  as  one  of  that  large 
family  of  supernatural  wives  who  are  permitted  to  live 
with  mortal  men  under  certain  conditions,  but  who  are 
compelled  to  flee  away  when  these  conditions  are  broken, 
as  is  always  sure  to  be  the  case.  The  eldest  and  one  of 
the  loveliest  of  this  family  is  the  Hindu  nymph  Urvasi, 
whose  love  adventures  with  Pururavas  are  narrated  in  the 
Puranas,  and  form  the  subject  of  the  well-known  and 
exquisite  Sanskrit  drama  by  Kalidasa.  Urvasi  is  allowed 
to  live  with  Pururavas  so  long  as  she  does  not  see  him 
undressed.  But  one  night  her  kinsmen,  the  Gandharvas, 
or  cloud-demons,  vexed  at  her  long  absence  from  heaven, 
resolved  to  get  her  away  from  her  mortal  companion. 


96 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


They  stole  a  pet  lamb  which  had  been  tied  at  the  foot  of 

her  couch,  whereat  she  bitterly  upbraided  her  husband. 
In  rage  and  mortification,  Pururavas  sprang  up  without 
throwing  on  his  tunic,  and  grasping  his  sword  sought  the 
robber.  Then  the  wicked  Gandharvas  sent  a  flash  of 
lightning,  and  Urvasi,  seeing  her  naked  husband,  instantly 
vanished. 

The  different  versions  of  this  legend,  which  have  been 
elaborately  analyzed  by  comparative  mythologists,  leave 
no  doubt  that  Urvasi  is  one  of  the  dawn-nymphs  or 
bright  fleecy  clouds  of  early  morning,  which  vanish  as 
the  splendour  of  the  sun  is  unveiled.  We  saw,  in  the 
preceding  paper,  that  the  ancient  Aryans  regarded  the 
sky  as  a  sea  or  great  lake,  and  that  the  clouds  were  ex- 
plained variously  as  Phaiakian  ships  with  bird-like  Beaks 
sailing  over  this  lake,  or  as  bright  birds  of  divers  shapes 
and  hues.  The  light  fleecy  cirrhi  were  regarded  as  mer- 
maids, or  as  swans,  or  as  maidens  with  swan's  plumage. 
In  Sanskrit  they  are  called  Apsaras,  or  "  those  who  move 
in  the  water,"  and  the  Elves  and  Maras  of  Teutonic  my- 
thology have  the  same  significance.  Urvasi  appears  in 
one  legend  as  a  bird ;  and  a  South  German  prescription 
for  getting  rid  of  the  Mara  asserts  that  if  she  be  wrapped 
up  in  the  bedclothes  and  firmly  held,  a  white  dove  wiU 
forthwith  fly  from  the  room,  leaving  the  bedclothes 
empty.* 

In  the  story  of  Melusina  the  cloud-maiden  appears  as 
a  kind  of  mermaid,  but  in  other  respects  the  legend  re- 
sembles that  of  Urvasi.  Eaymond,  Count  de  la  Foret, 
of  Poitou,  having  by  an  accident  killed  his  patron  and 
benefactor  during  a  hunting  excursion,  fled  in  terror  and 

*  See  Kulin,  Herabkunft  des  Feuers,  p.  91  ;  "Weber,  Indisclie  Studien, 
I.  197  ;  Wolf,  Beitrage  zur  deutschen  Mythologie,  11.  233  -  281 ; 
Miiller,  Chips,  II.  114  -  128. 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS.  97 


despair  into  the  deep  recesses  of  the  forest.  All  the 
afternoon  and  evening  he  wandered  through  the  thick 
dark  woods,  until  at  midnight  he  came  upon  a  strange 
scene.  All  at  once  "  the  boughs  of  the  trees  became  less 
interlaced,  and  the  trunks  fewer;  next  moment  his 
horse,  crashing  through  the  shrubs,  brought  him  out  on 
a  pleasant  glade,  white  with  rime,  and  illumined  by  the 
new  moon  ;  in  the  midst  bubbled  up  a  limpid  fountain, 
and  flowed  away  over  a  pebbly-floor  with  a  soothing  mur- 
mur. Near  the  fountain-head  sat  three  maidens  in  glim- 
mering white  dresses,  with  long  waving  golden  hair,  and 
faces  of  inexpressible  beauty."  *  One  of  them  advanced 
to  meet  Eaymond,  and  according  to  all  mythological 
precedent,  they  were  betrothed  before  daybreak.  In  due 
time  the  fountain-nymph  -|-  became  Countess  de  la  Foret, 
but  her  husband  was  given  to  understand  that  all  her 
Saturdays  would  be  passed  in  strictest  seclusion,  upon 
which  he  must  never  dare  to  intrude,  under  penalty  of 
losing  her  forever.  For  many  years  all  went  well,  save 
that  the  fair  Melusina's  children  were,  without  excep- 
tion, misshapen  or  disfigured.  But  after  a  while  this 
strange  weekly  seclusion  got  bruited  about  all  over  the 
neighbourhood,  and  people  shook  their  lieads  and  looked 
grave  about  it.  So  many  gossiping  tales  came  to  the 
Count's  ears,  that  he  began  to  grow  anxious  and  suspi- 
cious, and  at  last  he  determined  to  know  the  worst.  He 
went  one  Saturday  to  Melusina's  private  apartments,  and 
going  through  one  empty  room  after  another,  at  last  came 
to  a  locked  door  which  opened  into  a  bath  ;  looking 
through  a  keyhole,  there  he  saw  the  Countess  transformed 
from  the  waist  downwards  into  a  fish,  disporting  herself 

*  Baring- Gould,  Curious  Myths,  II.  207. 

+  The  word  nymph  itself  means  "  cloud-maiden,"  as  is  illustrated  by 
the  kinship  between  the  Greek  j/tz/i^T?  and  the  Latin  nubes. 

5  O 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


like  a  mermaid  in  the  water.  Of  course  he  could  not 
keep  the  secret,  but  when  some  time  afterwards  they 
quarrelled,  must  needs  address  her  as  "  a  vile  serpent, 
contaminator  of  his  honourable  race."  So  she  disap- 
peared through  the  window,  but  ever  afterward  hovered 
about  her  husband's  castle  of  Lusignan,  like  a  Banshee, 
whenever  one  of  its  lords  was  about  to  die. 

The  well-known  story  of  Undine  is  similar  to  that  of 
Melusina,  save  that  the  naiad's  desire  to  obtain  a  human 
soul  is  a  conception  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  the  myth, 
and  marks  the  degxadation  which  Christianity  had  in- 
flicted upon  the  denizens  of  fairy-land.  In  one  of 
Dasent's  tales  the  water-maiden  is  replaced  by  a  kind 
of  werewolf.  A  white  bear  marries  a  young  girl,  but 
assumes  the  human  shape  at  night.  She  is  never  to 
look  upon  him  in  his  human  shape,  but  how  could  a 
young  bride  be  expected  to  obey  such  an  injunction  as 
that  ?  She  lights  a  candle  while  he  is  sleeping,  and  dis- 
covers the  handsomest  prince  in  the  world  ;  unluckily  she 
drops  tallow  on  his  shirt,  and  that  tells  the  story.  But 
she  is  more  fortunate  than  poor  Eaymond,  for  after  a 
tiresome  journey  to  the  "  land  east  of  the  sun  and  west 
of  the  moon,"  and  an  arduous  washing-match  with  a  par- 
cel of  ugly  Trolls,  she  washes  out  the  spots,  and  ends  her 
husband's  enchantment.* 

In  the  majority  of  these  legends,  however,  the  Apsa- 
ras,  or  cloud-maiden,  has  a  shirt  of  swan's  feathers  which 
plays  the  same  part  as  the  wolfskin  cape  or  girdle  of  the 
werewolf  If  you  could  get  hold  of  a  werewolf 's  sack 
and  burn  it,  a  permanent  cure  was  effected.  No  dangei 
of  a  relapse,  unless  the  Devil  furnished  him  with  a  new 
wolfskin.    So  the  swan-maiden  kept  her  human  form,  as 

*  This  is  substantially  identical  with  the  storicii  of  Beauty  and  the 
Beast,  Eros  and  Psyche,  Gandharba  Sena,  etc. 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS. 


99 


long  as  she  was  deprived  of  her  tunic  of  feathers.  Indo- 
European  folk-lore  teems  with  stories  of  swan-maidens 
forcibly  wooed  and  won  by  mortals  who  had  stolen  their 
clothes.  A  man  travelling  along  the  road  passes  by  a 
lake  where  several  lovely  girls  are  bathing ;  their  dresses, 
made  of  feathers  curiously  and  daintily  woven,  lie  on  the 
shore.  He  approaches  the  place  cautiously  and  steals 
one  of  these  dresses.*  When  the  girls  have  finished 
their  bathing,  they  all  come  and  get  their  dresses  and 
swim  away  as  swans  ;  but  the  one  whose  dress  is  stolen 
must  needs  stay  on  shore  and  marry  the  thief  It  is 
needless  to  add  that  they  live  happily  together  for  many 
years,  or  that  finally  the  good  man  accidentally  leaves 
the  cupboard  door  unlocked,  whereupon  his  wife  gets  back 
her  swan-shirt  and  flies  away  from  him,  never  to  return. 
But  it  is  not  always  a  shirt  of  feathers.  In  one  German 
story,  a  nobleman  hunting  deer  finds  a  maiden  bathing 
in  a  clear  pool  in  the  forest.  He  runs  stealthily  up  to 
her  and  seizes  her  necklace,  at  which  she  loses  the 
power  to  flea  They  are  married,  and  she  bears  seven 
sons  at  once,  all  of  whom  have  gold  chains  about  their 
necks,  and  are  able  to  transform  themselves  into  swans 
whenever  they  like.  A  Flemish  legend  tells  of  three 
Nixies,  or  water-sprites,  who  came  out  of  the  Meuse  one 
autumn  evening,  and  helped  the  villagers  celebrate  the 
end  of  the  vintage.  Such  graceful  dancers  liad  never 
been  seen  in  Flanders,  and  they  could  sing  as  well  as 
they  could  dance.  As  the  night  was  warm,  one  of  them 
took  off  her  gloves  and  gave  them  to  her  partner  to  hold 
for  her.    When  the  clock  struck  twelve  the  otlier  two 

*  The  feather-dress  reappears  in  the  Arabian  story  of  Hassan  of  El- 
Basrah,  who  by  stealing  it  secures  possession  of  the  Jinniya.  See  Lane's 
Arabian  Nights,  Vol.  III.  p.  380.  Ralston,  Songs  of  the  Russian  Peo- 
ple, p.  179. 


lOO 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


started  off  in  hot  haste,  and  then  there  was  a  hue  and 
cry  for  gloves.  The  lad  would  keep  them  as  love-tokenS; 
and  so  the  poor  Mxie  had  to  go  home  without  them; 
but  she  must  have  died  on  the  way,  for  next  morn- 
ing the  waters  of  the  Meuse  were  blood-red,  and  those 
damsels  never  returned. 

In  the  Faro  Islands  it  is  believed  that  seals  cast  off 
their  skins  every  ninth  night,  assume  human  forms,  and 
sing  and  dance  like  men  and  women  until  daybreak, 
when  they  resume  their  skins  and  their  seal  natures. 
Of  course  a  man  once  found  and  hid  one  of  these  seal- 
skins, and  so  got  a  mermaid  for  a  wife  ;  and  of  course  she 
recovered  the  skin  and  escaped.*  On  the  coasts  of  Ire- 
land it  is  supposed  to  be  quite  an  ordinary  thing  for 
young  sea-fairies  to  get  human  husbands  in  this  way; 
the  brazen  things  even  come  to  shore  on  purpose,  and 
leave  their  red  caps  lying  around  for  young  men  to  pick 
up  ;  but  it  behooves  the  husband  to  keep  a  strict  watch 
over  the  red  cap,  if  he  would  not  see  his  children  left 
motherless. 

This  mermaid's  cap  has  contributed  its  quota  to  the 
superstitions  of  witchcraft.  An  Irish  story  tells  how  Eed 
James  was  aroused  from  sleep  one  night  by  noises  in  the 
kitchen.  Going  down  to  the  door,  he  saw  a  lot  of  old 
women  drinking  punch  around  the  fireplace,  and  laugh- 
ing and  joking  with  his  housekeeper.  When  the  punch- 
bowl was  empty,  they  all  put  on  red  caps,  and  singing 

"  By  yarrow  and  rue, 
And  niy  red  cap  too, 

Hie  me  over  to  England," 

they  flew  up  chimney.  So  Jimmy  burst  into  the  room, 
and  seized  the  housekeeper's  cap,  and  went  along  with 

'*  Thorpe,  Northern  Mythology,  III.  173  ;  Kennedy,  Fictions  of  the 
Irish  Celts,  p.  123, 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS.  lOI 


them.  They  flew  across  the  sea  to  a  castle  in  Eng- 
land, passed  through  the  keyholes  from  room  to  room 
and  into  the  cellar,  where  they  had  a  famous  carouse. 
Unluckily  Jimmy,  being  unused  to  such  good  cheer,  got 
drunk,  and  forgot  to  put  on  his  cap  when  the  others  did. 
So  next  morning  the  lord's  butler  found  him  dead-drunk 
on  the  cellar  floor,  surrounded  by  empty  casks.  He  was 
sentenced  to  be  hung  without  any  trial  worth  speaking 
of ;  but  as  he  was  carted  to  the  gallows  an  old  woman 
cried  out,  "  Ach,  Jimmy  alanna  !  Would  you  be  afther 
dyin'  in  a  strange  land  without  your  red  birredh  ?  "  The 
lord  made  no  objections,  and  so  the  red  cap  was  brought 
and  put  on  him.  Accordingly  when  Jimmy  had  got  to 
the  gallows  and  was  making  his  last  speech  for  the  edi- 
fication of  the  spectators,  he  unexpectedly  and  somewhat 
irrelevantly  exclaimed,  "  By  yarrow  and  rue,"  etc.,  and 
was  off  like  a  rocket,  shooting  through  the  blue  air  en 
route  for  old  Ireland.* 

In  another  Irish  legend  an  enchanted  ass  comes  into 
the  kitchen  of  ^  great  house  every  night,  and  washes  the 
dishes  and  scours  the  tins,  so  that  the  servants  lead  an 
easy  life  of  it.  After  a  while  in  their  exuberant  grati- 
tude they  offer  him  any  present  for  which  he  may  feel 
incUned  to  ask.  He  desires  only  "  an  ould  coat,  to  keep 
the  chill  off*  of  him  these  could  nights  " ;  but  as  soon  as 
he  gets  into  the  coat  he  resumes  his  human  form  and  bids 
them  good  by,  and  thenceforth  they  may  wash  their  own 
dishes  and  scour  their  own  tins,  for  all  him. 

But  we  are  diverging  from  the  subject  of  swan-maid- 
ens, and  are  in  danger  of  losing  ourselves  in  that  laby- 
rinth of  popular  fancies  which  is  more  intricate  than  any 
that  Daidalos  ever  planned.  The  significance  of  all  these 
sealskins  and  feather-dresses  and  mermaid  caps  and  were- 

♦  Kennedy,  Fictions  of  the  Irish  Celts,  p.  168. 


102 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


wolf-girdles  may  best  be  sought  in  the  etymology  of  words 
like  the  German  leichnam,  in  which  the  body  is  described 
as  a  garment  of  flesh  for  the  soul.*  In  the  naive  phi- 
losophy of  primitive  thinkers,  the  soul,  in  passing  from 
one  visible  shape  to  another,  had  only  to  put  on  the  out- 
ward integument  of  the  creature  in  which  it  wished  to 
incarnate  itself  With  respect  to  the  mode  of  metamor- 
phosis, there  is  little  difference  between  the  werewolf  and 
the  swan-maiden ;  and  the  similarity  is  no  less  striking 
between  the  genesis  of  the  two  conceptions.  The  origi- 
nal werewolf  is  the  night-wind,  regarded  now  as  a  man- 
like deity  and  now  as  a  howling  lupine  fiend ;  and  the 
original  swan-maiden  is  the  light  fleecy  cloud,  regarded 
either  as  a  woman-like  goddess  or  as  a  bird  swimming  in 
the  sky  sea.  The  one  conception  has  been  productive  of 
little  else  but  horrors  ;  the  other  has  given  rise  to  a  great 
variety  of  fanciful  creations,  from  the  treacherous  mer- 
maid and  the  fiendish  nightmare  to  the  gentle  Undine, 
the  charming  Nausikaa,  and  the  stately  Muse  of  classic 
antiquity. 

We  have  seen  that  the  original  werewolf,  howling  in 
the  wintry  blast,  is  a  kind  of  psychopomp,  or  leader  of 
departed  souls ;  he  is  the  wild  ancestor  of  the  death-dog, 
whose  voice  under  the  window  of  a  sick-chamber  is  even 
now  a  sound  of  ill-omen.  The  swan-maiden  has  also 
been  supposed  to  summon  the  dying  to  her  home  in  the 
Phaiakian  land.  The  Valkyries,  with  their  shirts  of  swan- 
plumage,  who  hovered  over  Scandinavian  battle-fields  to 
receive  the  souls  of  falling  heroes,  were  identical  with 
the  Hindu  Apsaras ;  and  the  Houris  of  the  Mussulman 
belong  to  the  same  family.  Even  for  the  angels,  — 
women  with  large  wings,  who  are  seen  in  popular  pictures 
bearing  mortals  on  high  towards  heaven,  —  we  can  hardly 

*  Baring-Gould,  Book  of  "Werewolves,  p.  163. 


WEREWOLVES  AND  SWAN-MAIDENS.  103 

claim  a  different  kinship.  Melusina,  when  she  leaves 
the  castle  of  Lusignan,  becomes  a  Banshee ;  and  it  has 
been  a  common  superstition  among  sailors,  that  the 
appearance  of  a  mermaid,  with  her  comb  and  looking- 
glass,  foretokens  shipwreck,  with  the  loss  of  all  on 
board. 


October,  1870. 


104 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


nr. 


LIGHT  AND  DAEKNESS. 


'HEN  Maitland  blasphemously  asserted  that  God 


T  V  was  but  "  a  Bogie  of  the  nursery,"  he  unwittingly 
made  a  remark  as  suggestive  in  point  of  philology  as  it 
was  crude  and  repulsive  in  its  atheism.  When  examined 
with  the  lenses  of  linguistic  science,  the  "  Bogie "  or 
"  Bug-a-boo  "  or  "  Bugbear "  of  nursery  lore  turns  out 
to  be  identical,  not  only  with  the  fairy  "  Puck,"  whom 
Shakespeare  has  immortalized,  but  also  with  the  Sla- 
vonic "  Bog  "  and  the  "  Baga  "  of  the  Cuneiform  Inscrip- 
tions, both  of  which  are  names  for  the  Supreme  Being. 
If  we  proceed  further,  and  inquire  after  the  ancestral 
form  of  these  epithets,  —  so  strangely  incongruous  in 
their  significations,  —  we  shall  find  it  in  the  Old  Aryan 
"  Bhaga,"  which  reappears  unchanged  in  the  Sanskrit  of 
the  Vedas,  and  has  left  a  memento  of  itself  in  the  sur- 
name of  the  Phrygian  Zeus  "  Bagaios."  It  seems  origi- 
nally to  have  denoted  either  the  unclouded  sun  or  the 
sky  of  noonday  illumined  by  the  solar  rays.  In  Sayana's 
commentary  on  the  Rig- Veda,  Bhaga  is  enumerated  among 
the  seven  (or  eight)  sons  of  Aditi,  the  boundless  Orient ; 
and  he  is  elsewhere  described  as  the  lord  of  life,  the  giver 
of  bread,  and  the  bringer  of  happiness.* 

Thus  the  same  name  which,  to  the  Yedic  poet,  to  the 
Persian  of  the  time  of  Xerxes,  and  to  the  modern  Eus- 

*  Muir's  Sanskrit  Texts,  Vol.  IV.  p.  12  ;  Miiller,  Rig- Veda  Sanhita, 
Vol.  I.  pp.  230-251  ;  Fick,  Woerterbuch  der  Indogermanischen  Gnind- 
sprache,  p.  124,  s.  v.  Bhaga. 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS. 


105 


sian,  suggests  the  supreme  majesty  of  deity,  is  in  English 
associated  with  an  ugly  and  ludicrous  fiend,  closely  akin 
to  that  grotesque  Northern  Devil  of  whom  Southey  was 
unable  to  think  without  laughing.  Such  is  the  irony  of 
fate  toward  a  deposed  deity.  The  German  name  for  idol 
—  Abgott,  that  is,  "  ex-god,"  or  "  dethroned  god  "  —  sums 
up  in  a  single  etymology  the  history  of  the  havoc  wrought 
by  monotheism  among  the  ancient  symbols  of  deity.  In 
the  hospitable  Pantheon  of  the  Greeks  and  Eomans  a 
niche  was  always  in  readiness  for  every  new  divinity 
who  could  produce  respectable  credentials ;  but  the  tri- 
umph of  monotheism  converted  the  stately  mansion  into 
a  Pandemonium  peopled  with  fiends.  To  the  monotheist 
an  "  ex-god  "  was  simply  a  devilish  deceiver  of  mankind 
whom  the  true  God  had  succeeded  in  vanquishing ;  and 
thus  the  word  demon,  which  to  the  ancient  meant  a  di- 
vine or  semi-divine  being,  came  to  be  applied  to  fiends 
exclusively.  Thus  the  Teutonic  races,  who  preserved  the 
name  of  their  highest  divinity,  Odin,  —  originally,  Guo- 
dan,  —  by  which  to  designate  the  God  of  the  Christian,* 
were  unable  to  regard  the  Bog  of  ancient  tradition  as 
anything  but  an  "  ex-god,"  or  vanquished  demon. 

The  most  striking  illustration  of  this  process  is  to  be 
found  in  the  word  devil  itself.  To  a  reader  unfamiliar 
with  the  endless  tricks  which  language  delights  in  play- 
ing, it  may  seem  shocking  to  be  told  that  the  Gypsies 
use  the  word  devil  as  the  name  of  God.-f    This,  however, 

*  In  the  North  American  Review,  October,  1869,  p.  354,  I  have  col- 
lected a  number  of  facts  which  seem  to  me  to  prove  beyond  question  that 
the  name  God  is  derived  from  Guodan,  the  original  form  of  Odin,  the 
supreme  deity  of  our  Pagan  forefathers.  The  case  is  exactly  parallel  to 
that  of  the  French  DieUy  which  is  descended  from  the  DeiLs  of  the  pagan 
Roman. 

+  See  Pott,  Die  Zigeuner,  II.  311  ;  Kuhn,  Beitrage,  I.  147.  Yet 
in  the  worship  of  dewel  by  the  Gypsies  is  to  be  found  the  element  of 
5* 


I06  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

is  not  because  these  people  have  made  the  archfiend  an 
object  of  worship,  but  because  the  Gypsy  language,  de- 
scending directly  from  the  Sanskrit,  has  retained  in  its 
primitive  exalted  sense  a  word  which  the  English  language 
has  received  only  in  its  debased  and  perverted  sense. 
The  Teutonic  words  devil,  teufel,  diuval,  djdfull,  djevful, 
may  all  be  traced  back  to  the  Zend  dev*  a  name  in  which 
is  implicitly  contained  the  record  of  the  oldest  monothe- 
istic revolution  known  to  history.  The  influence  of  the 
so-called  Zoroastrian  reform  upon  the  long-subsequent 
development  of  Christianity  will  receive  further  notice 
in  the  course  of  this  paper ;  for  the  present  it  is  enough 
to  know  that  it  furnished  for  all  Christendom  the  name 
by  which  it  designates  the  author  of  evil.  To  the  Parsee 
follower  of  Zarathustra  the  name  of  the  Devil  has  very 
nearly  the  same  signification  as  to  the  Christian ;  yet,  as 
Grimm  has  shown,  it  is  nothing  else  than  a  corruption 
of  deva,  the  Sanskrit  name  for  God.  When  Zarathustra 
overthrew  the  primeval  Aryan  nature- worship  in  Bactria, 
this  name  met  the  same  evil  fate  which  in  early  Christian 
times  overtook  the  word  demon,  and  from  a  symbol  of 
reverence  became  henceforth  a  symbol  of  detestation.*)* 
But  throughout  the  rest  of  the  Aryan  world  it  achieved 

diabolism  invariably  present  in  barbaric  worship.  "  Dewel,  the  great 
god  in  heaven  {dewa,  deus),  is  rather  feared  than  loved  by  these  weather- 
beaten  outcasts,  for  he  harms  them  on  their  wanderings  with  his  thun- 
der and  lightning,  his  snow  and  rain,  and  his  stars  interfere  with  their 
dark  doings.  Therefore  they  curse  him  foully  when  misfortune  falls  on 
them  ;  and  when  a  child  dies,  they  say  that  Dewel  has  eaten  it."  Tyler, 
Primitive  Culture,  Vol.  II.  p.  248. 
*  See  Grimm,  Deutsche  Mythologie,  939. 

t  The  Buddhistic  as  well  as  the  Zarathustrian  reformation  degraded 
the  Vedic  gods  into  demons.  **  In  Buddhism  we  find  these  ancient  de- 
vas,  Indra  and  the  rest,  carried  about  at  shows,  as  servants  of  Buddha, 
\s  goblins,  or  fabulous  heroes."  Max  Miiller,  Chips,  1.  25.  This  is  like 
he  Christian  change  of  Odin  into  an  ogre,  and  of  Thor  into  the  Devil. 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS, 


107 


a  nobler  career,  producing  the  Greek  thcos,  the  Lithuanian 
diewas,  the  Latin  deus,  and  hence  the  modern  French 
Dieu,  all  meaning  God. 

If  we  trace  back  this  remarkable  word  to  its  primitive 
source  in  that  once  lost  but  now  partially  recovered  moth- 
er-tongue from  which  all  our  Aryan  languages  are  de- 
scended, we  find  a  root  div  or  dyu,  meaning  "  to  shine." 
From  the  first-mentioned  form  comes  dcva,  with  its  nu- 
merous progeny  of  good  and  evil  appellatives ;  from  the 
latter  is  derived  the  name  of  Dyaus,  with  its  brethren, 
Zeus  and  Jupiter.  In  Sanskrit  dyu,  as  a  noun,  means 
"  sky  "  and  "  day  "  ;  and  there  are  many  passages  in  the 
Eig-Veda  where  the  character  of  the  god  Dyaus,  as  the 
personification  of  the  sky  or  the  brightness  of  the  ethereal 
heavens,  is  unmistakably  apparent.  This  key  unlocks 
for  us  one  of  the  secrets  of  Greek  mythology.  So  long 
as  there  was  for  Zeus  no  better  etymology  than  that 
which  assigned  it  to  the  root  zen,  "  to  live,"  *  there  was 
little  hope  of  understanding  the  nature  of  Zeus.  But 
when  we  learn  that  Zeus  is  identical  with  Dyaus,  the 
bright  sky,  we  are  enabled  to  understand  Horace's  ex- 
pression, "  sub  Jove  frigido,"  and  the  prayer  of  the  Athe- 
nians, "  Eain,  rain,  dear  Zeus,  on  the  land  of  the  Atheni- 
ans, and  on  the  fields."  f  Such  expressions  as  these  were 
retained  by  the  Greeks  and  Eomans  long  after  they  had 
forgotten  that  their  supreme  deity  was  once  the  sky.  Yet 
even  the  Brahman,  from  whose  mind  the  physical  signifi- 

*  Zei>s  —  Ma  —  Ttrjva  —  5t  6v  ^rjv  ael  Tract  rots  fwcrtv  vTdpx^i.  Plato, 
Kratylos,  p.  396,  A.,  with  Stallbaum's  note.  See  also  Proklos,  Comm. 
ad  Timaeum,  II.  p.  226,  Schneider  ;  and  compare  Pseudo-Aristotle,  De 
Mundo,  p.  401,  a,  15,  who  adopts  the  etymology  5t  6v  fw/xev.  See  also 
Diogenes  Laertius,  VII.  147. 

+  Evxv  'Adrjualoju,  ffcroi/,  iaov,  Cj  <f>L\€  Zeu,  Kara  TTjt  dpoOpy.s  twv  'A6-n- 
faloov  Kal  tG)p  ireSicjv.  Marcus  Aurelius,  v.  7  ;  Ce  5'  &pa  Zevs  avvex^s. 
Horn.  Iliad,  xii.  25  ;  of.  Petrouius  Arbiter,  Sat.  xliv. 


I08  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKEnS. 

cance  of  the  god's  name  never  wholly  disappeared,  couR 
speak  of  him  as  Father  Dyaus,  the  great  Pitri,  or  ances- 
tor of  gods  and  men ;  and  in  this  reverential  name  Byaiis 
pitar  may  be  seen  the  exact  equivalent  of  the  Eoman's 
Jupiter,  or  Jove  the  Father.  The  same  root  can  be  fol- 
lowed into  Old  German,  where  Zio  is  the  god  of  day ; 
and  into  Anglo-Saxon,  where  Tiwsdacg,  or  the  day  of 
Zeus,  is  the  ancestral  form  of  Tuesday. 

Thus  we  again  reach  the  same  results  which  were  ob- 
tained from  the  examination  of  the  name  Bhaga.  These 
various  names  for  the  supreme  Aryan  god,  wliich  without 
the  help  afforded  by  the  Vedas  could  never  have  been 
interpreted,  are  seen  to  have  been  originally  applied  to 
the  sun-illumined  firmament.  Countless  other  examples, 
when  similarly  analyzed,  show  that  the  earliest  Aryan 
conception  of  a  Divine  Power,  nourishing  man  and  sus- 
taining the  universe,  was  suggested  by  the  light  of  the 
mighty  Sun ;  who,  as  modern  science  has  shown,  is  the 
originator  of  all  life  and  motion  upon  the  globe,  and 
whom  the  ancients  delighted  to  believe  tlie  source,  not 
only  of  "the  golden  light,"*  but  of  everything  that  is 
bright,  joy-giving,  and  pure.  Nevertheless,  in  accepting 
this  conclusion  as  well  established  by  linguistic  science, 
we  must  be  on  our  guard  against  an  error  into  which 
writers  on  mythology  are  very  liable  to  fall.  Neither 
sky  nor  sun  nor  light  of  day,  neither  Zeus  nor  Apollo, 
neither  Dyaus  nor  Indra,  was  ever  worshipped  by  the 
ancient  Aryan  in  anything  like  a  monotheistic  sense. 
To  interpret  Zeus  or  Jupiter  as  originally  the  supreme 
Aryan  god,  and  to  regard  classic  paganism  as  one  of  the 
degraded  remnants  of  a  primeval  monotheism,  is  to  sin 
against  the  canons  of  a  sound  inductive  philosophy. 

*  "II  Sol,  dell  aurea  luce  eterno  fonte."  Tasso,  Gerns.alemaie,  XV. 
47  ;  cf.  Dante,  Paradise,  X.  28. 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS.  lOQ 

Philology  itself  teaches  us  that  this  could  not  have  been 
so.  Father  Dyaus  was  originally  the  bright  sky  and 
nothing  more.  Although  his  name  became  generalized, 
in  the  classic  languages,  into  deus,  or  God,  it  is  quite 
certain  that  in  early  days,  before  the  Aryan  separation, 
it  had  acquired  no  such  exalted  significance.  It  was 
only  in  Greece  and  Eome  —  or,  we  may  say,  among  the 
still  imited  Italo-Hellenic  tribes  —  that  Jupiter-Zeus 
attained  a  pre-eminence  over  all  other  deities.  The 
people  of  Iran  quite  rejected  him,  the  Teutons  preferred 
Thor  and  Odin,  and  in  India  he  was  superseded,  first  by 
Indra,  afterwards  by  Brahma  and  Vishnu.  We  need 
not,  therefore,  look  for  a  single  supreme  divinity  among 
the  old  Aryans ;  nor  may  we  expect  to  find  any  sense, 
active  or  dormant,  of  monotheism  in  the  primitive  intel- 
ligence of  uncivilized  men.*  The  whole  fabric  of  com- 
parative mythology,  as  at  present  constituted,  and  as 
described  above,  in  the  first  of  these  papers,  rests  upon 
the  postulate  that  the  earliest  religion  was  pure  fetichism. 

In  the  unsystematic  nature-worship  of  the  old  Aryans 
the  gods  are  presented  to  us  only  as  vague  powers,  with 
their  nature  and  attributes  dimly  defined,  and  their  rela- 
tions to  each  other  fluctuating  and  often  contradictory. 
There  is  no  theogony,  no  regular  subordination  of  one 
deity  to  another.  The  same  pair  of  divinities  appear 
now  as  father  and  daughter,  now  as  brother  and  sister, 

*  The  Aryans  were,  however,  doubtless  better  off  than  the  tribes  of 
North  America.  *'In  no  Indian  language  could  the  early  missionaries 
find  a  word  to  express  the  idea  of  God.  Manitou  and  Oki  meant  any- 
thing endowed  with  supernatural  powers,  from  a  snake-skin  or  a  greasy 
Indian  conjurer  up  to  Manabozho  and  Jouskeha.  The  priests  were 
forced  to  use  a  circumlocution,  —  'the  great  chief  of  men,'  or  *he  who 
lives  in  the  sky.' "  Parkman,  Jesuits  in  North  America,  p.  Ixxix. 
"  The  Algonquins  used  no  oaths,  for  their  language  supplied  none ; 
doubtless  because  their  mythology  had  no  beings  sufficiently  distinct  to 
Bwearby."    Ibid,  p.  31. 


110 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


now  as  husband  and  wife;  and  again  they  quite  lose 
their  personality,  and  are  represented  as  mere  natural 
phenomena.  As  Miiller  observes,  "  The  poets  of  the 
Veda  indulged  freely  in  theogonic  speculations  without 
being  frightened  by  any  contradictions.  They  knew  of 
Indra  as  the  greatest  of  gods,  they  knew  of  Agni  as  the 
god  of  gods,  they  knew  of  Varuna  as  the  ruler  of  all ;  but 
they  were  by  no  means  startled  at  the  idea  that  their 
Indra  had  a  mother,  or  that  their  Agni  [Latin  ignis]  was 
born  like  a  babe  from  the  friction  of  two  fire-sticks,  or 
that  Varuna  and  his  brother  Mitra  were  nursed  in  the 
lap  of  Aditi."  *  Thus  we  have  seen  Bhaga,  the  day- 
light, represented  as  the  offspring  of  Aditi,  the  boundless 
Orient;  but  he  had  several  brothers,  and  among  them 
were  Mitra,  the  sun,  Varuna,  the  overarching  firmament, 
and  Vivasvat,  the  vivifying  sun.  Manifestly  we  have 
here  but  so  many  different  names  for  what  is  at  bottom 
one  and  the  same  conception.  The  common  element 
which,  in  Dyaus  and  Varuna,  in  Bhaga  and  Indra,  was 
made  an  object  of  worship,  is  the  brightness,  warmth, 
and  life  of  day,  as  contrasted  with  the  darkness,  cold,  and 
seeming  death  of  the  night-time.  And  this  common 
element  was  personified  in  as  many  different  ways  as 
the  unrestrained  fancy  of  the  ancient  worshipper  saw  fit 
to  devise.-(" 

Thus  we  begin  to  see  why  a  few  simple  objects,  like 
the  sun,  the  sky,  the  dawn,  and  the  night,  should  be  repre- 
sented in  mythology  by  such  a  host  of  gods,  goddesses, 
and  heroes.  For  at  one  time  the  Sim  is  represented  as 
the  conqueror  of  hydras  and  dragons  who  hide  away  from 
iflen  the  golden  treasures  of  light  and  warmth,  and  at 
aiiothef  time  he  is  represented  as  a  weary  vdyager  trav- 

*  MuUer,  Rig-Veda-Sanhita,  1.  230. 

t  Compare  the  remarks  of  Breal,  Hercule  et  Cacus,  p.  13. 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS. 


Ill 


ersing  the  sky-sea  amid  many  perils,  with  the  steadfast 
purpose  of  returning  to  his  western  home  and  his  twi- 
light bride ;  hence  the  different  conceptions  of  Herakles, 
Bellerophon,  and  Odysseus.  Now  he  is  represented  as 
the  son  of  the  Dawn,  and  again,  with  equal  propriety,  as 
the  son  of  the  Night,  and  the  fickle  lover  of  the  Dawn ; 
hence  we  have,  on  the  one  hand,  stories  of  a  virgin 
mother  who  dies  in  giving  birth  to  a  hero,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  stories  of  a  beautiful  maiden  who  is  forsaken 
and  perhaps  cruelly  slain  by  her  treacherous  lover.  In- 
deed, the  Sun's  adventures  with  so  many  dawn-maidens 
have  given  him  quite  a  bad  character,  and  the  legends 
are  numerous  in  which  he  appears  as  the  prototype  of 
Don  Juan.  Yet  again  his  separation  from  the  bride 
of  his  youth  is  described  as  due  to  no  fault  of  his  own, 
but  to  a  resistless  decree  of  fate,  which  hurries  him  away, 
as  Aineias  was  compelled  to  abandon  Dido.  Or,  accord- 
ing to  a  third  and  equally  plausible  notion,  he  is  a  hero 
of  ascetic  virtues,  and  the  dawn-maiden  is  a  wicked 
enchantress,  daughter  of  tlie  sensual  Aphrodite,  who 
vainly  endeavours  to  seduce  him.  In  the  story  of  Odys- 
seus these  various  conceptions  are  blended  together. 
When  enticed  by  artful  women,*  he  yields  for  a  while 
to  the  temptation ;  but  by  and  by  his  longing  to  see 
Penelope  takes  him  homeward,  albeit  with  a  record 
which  Penelope  might  not  altogether  have  liked.  Again, 
though  the  Sun,  "  always  roaming  with  a  hungry  heart," 

*  It  should  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  one  of  the  women  who 
tempt  Odysseus  is  not  a  dawn-maiden,  but  a  goddess  of  darkness  ; 
Kalypso  answers  to  Venus-Ui'sula  in  the  myth  of  Tannhauser.  Kirke, 
on  the  other  hand,  seems  to  be  a  dawn-maiden,  like  .Medeia,  whom  she 
resembles.  In  her  the  wisdom  of  the  dawn-goddess  Athene,  the  loftiest 
of  Greek  divinities,  becomes  degraded  into  the  art  of  an  enchantress. 
She  reappears,  in  the  Arabian  Nights,  as  the  wicked  Queen  Labe,  whoso 
sorcery  none  of  her  lovers  can  baffle,  save  Beder,  king  of  Persia. 


112 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


has  seen  many  cities  and  customs  of  strange  men,  he  is 
nevertheless  confined  to  a  single  path,  —  a  circumstance 
which  seems  to  have  occasioned  much  speculation  in  the 
primeval  mind.  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega  relates  of  a  certain 
Peruvian  Inca,  who  seems  to  have  been  an  "infidel" 
with  reference  to  the  orthodox  mythology  of  his  day, 
that  he  thought  the  Sun  was  not  such  a  mighty  god  after 
all ;  for  if  he  were,  he  would  wander  about  the  heavens 
at  random  instead  of  going  forever,  like  a  horse  in  a 
treadmill,  along  the  same  course.  The  American  Indians 
explained  this  circumstance  by  myths  which  told  how 
the  Sun  was  once  caught  and  tied  with  a  chain  which 
would  only  let  him  swing  a  little  way  to  one  side  or  the 
other.  The  ancient  Aryan  developed  the  nobler  myth  of 
the  labours  of  Herakles,  performed  in  obedience  to  the 
bidding  of  Eurystheus.  Again,  the  Sun  must  needs 
destroy  its  parents,  the  Night  and  the  Dawn;  and 
accordingly  his  parents,  forewarned  by  prophecy,  expose 
him  in  infancy,  or  order  him  to  be  put  to  death ;  but  his 
tragic  destiny  never  fails  to  be  accomplished  to  the  letter. 
And  again  the  Sun,  who  engages  in  quarrels  not  his  own, 
is  sometimes  represented  as  retiring  moodily  from  the 
sight  of  men,  like  Achilleus  and  Meleagros :  he  is  short- 
lived and  ill-fated,  born  to  do  much  good  and  to  be 
repaid  with  ingratitude  ;  his  life  depends  on  the  duration 
of  a  burning  brand,  and  when  that  is  extinguished  he 
must  die. 

The  myth  of  the  great  Theban  hero,  Oidipous,  well 
illustrates  the  multiplicity  of  conceptions  which  clustered 
about  the  daily  career  of  the  solar  orb.  His  father,  Laios, 
had  been  warned  by  the  Delphic  oracle  that  he  was  in 
danger  of  death  from  his  own  son.  The  newly  born 
Oidipous  was  therefore  exposed  on  the  hillside ;  but,  like 
Eomulus  and  Eemus,  and  all  infants  similarly  situated 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS. 


in  legend,  was  duly  rescued.  He  was  taken  to  Corinth, 
where  he  grew  up  to  manhood.  Journeying  once  to 
Thebes,  he  got  into  a  quarrel  with  an  old  man  whom  he 
met  on  the  road,  and  slew  him,  who  was  none  other  than 
his  father,  Laios.  Reaching  Thebes,  he  found  the  city 
harassed  by  the  Sphinx,  who  afflicted  the  land  with 
drought  until  she  should  receive  an  answer  to  her  riddles. 
Oidipous  destroyed  the  monster  by  solving  her  dark  say- 
ings, and  as  a  reward  received  the  kingdom,  with  his  own 
mother,  lokaste,  as  his  bride.  Then  the  Erinyes  has- 
tened the  discovery  of  these  dark  deeds ;  lokaste  died  in 
her  bridal  chamber ;  and  Oidipous,  having  blinded  liimself, 
fled  to  the  grove  of  the  Eumenides,  near  Athens,  where, 
amid  flashing  lightning  and  peals  of  thunder,  he  died. 

Oidipous  is  the  Sun.  Like  all  the  solar  heroes,  from 
Herakles  and  Perseus  to  Sigurd  and  William  Tell,  he 
performs  his  marvellous  deeds  at  the  behest  of  others. 
His  father,  Laios,  is  none  other  than  the  Vedic  Dasyu, 
the  night-demon  who  is  sure  to  be  destroyed  by  his  solar 
offspring.  In. the  evening,  Oidipous  is  united  to  the 
Dawn,  the  mother  who  had  borne  him  at  daybreak ;  and 
here  the  original  story  doubtless  ended.  In  the  Vedic 
hymns  we  find  Indra,  the  Sun,  born  of  Dahana  (Daphne), 
the  Dawn,  whom  he  afterwards,  in  the  evening  twilight, 
marries.  To  the  Indian  mind  the  story  was  here  com- 
plete ;  but  the  Greeks  had  forgotten  and  outgrown  the 
primitive  signification  of  the  myth.  To  them  Oidipous 
and  lokaste  were  human,  or  at  least  anthropomorphic 
beings ;  and  a  marriage  between  them  was  a  fearful  crime 
which  called  for  bitter  expiation.  Thus  the  latter  part 
of  the  story  arose  in  the  effort  to  satisfy  a  moral  feeling. 
As  the  name  of  Laios  denotes  the  dark  night,  so,  like 
lole,  Oinone,  and  lamos,  the  word  lokaste  signifies  the 
delicate  violet  tints  of  the  morning  and  evening  clouda 


114 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


Oidipous  was  exposed,  like  Paris  upon  Ida  (a  Vedic 
word  meaning  "  the  earth  because  the  sunlight  in  the 
morning  lies  upon  the  hillside.*  He  is  borne  on  to  the 
destruction  of  his  father  and  the  incestuous  marriage 
with  his  mother  by  an  irresistible  Moira,  or  Fate ;  the 
sun  cannot  but  slay  the  darkness  and  hasten  to  the  couch 
of  the  violet  twilight.-f-  The  Sphinx  is  the  storm-demon 
who  sits  on  the  cloud-rock  and  imprisons  the  rain ;  she 
is  the  same  as  Medusa,  Ahi,  or  Echidna,  and  Chimaira, 
and  is  akin  to  the  throttling  snakes  of  darkness  which 
the  jealous  Here  sent  to  destroy  Herakles  in  his  cradle. 
The  idea  was  not  derived  from  Egypt,  but  the  Greeks,  on 
finding  Egyptian  figures  resembling  their  conception  of 
the  Sphinx,  called  them  by  the  same  name.  The  omni- 
scient Sun  comprehends  the  sense  of  her  dark  mutterings, 
and  destroys  her,  as  Indra  slays  Vritra,  bringing  down 
rain  upon  the  parched  earth.  The  Erinyes,  who  bring  to 
light  the  crimes  of  Oidipous,  have  been  explained,  in  a 
previous  paper,  as  the  personification  of  daylight,  which 
reveals  the  evil  deeds  done  under  the  cover  of  night. 
The  grove  of  the  Erinyes,  like  the  garden  of  the  Hyper- 
boreans, represents  "  the  fairy  network  of  clouds,  which 
are  the  first  to  receive  and  the  last  to  lose  the  light 
of  the  sun  in  the  morning  and  in  the  evening ;  hence, 
although  Oidipous  dies  in  a  thunder-storm,  yet  the 
Eumenides  are  kind  to  him,  and  his  last  hour  is  one  of 

*  The  Persian  Cyrus  is  an  historical  personage  ;  but  the  story  of  his 
perils  in  infancy  belongs  to  solar  mythology  as  much  as  the  stories  of 
the  magic  sleep  of  Charlemagne  and  Barbarossa.  His  grandfather, 
Astyages,  is  purely  a  mythical  creation,  his  name  being  identical  with 
that  of  the  night-demon,  Azidahaka,  \yho  appears  in  the  Shah-Nameh 
as  the  biting  sei-pent  Zohak.  See  Cox,  Mythology  of  the  Aryan  Nations, 
TI.  358. 

+  In  mediaeval  legend  this  resistless  Moira  is  transformed  into  the 
curse  which  prevents  the  Wandering  Jew  from  resting  until  the  day  of 
judgment. 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS. 


deep  peace  and  tranquillity."  *  To  the  last  remains  with 
him  his  daughter  Antigone,  "  she  who  is  born  opposite," 
the  pale  light  which  springs  up  opposite  to  the  setting 
sun. 

These  examples  show  that  a  story-root  may  be  as 
prolific  of  heterogeneous  offspring  as  a  word-root.  Just 
as  we  find  the  root  spak,  "  to  look,"  begetting  words  so 
various  as  sceptic,  bishop,  speculate,  conspicuous,  species^ 
and  spice,  we  must  expect  to  find  a  simple  representation 
of  the  diurnal  course  of  the  sun,  like  those  lyi-ically  given 
in  the  Veda,  branching  off  into  stories  as  diversified  as 
those  of  Oidipous,  Herakles,  Odysseus,  and  Siegfried. 
In  fact,  the  types  upon  which  stories  are  constructed  are 
wonderfully  few.  Some  clever  playwright  —  I  believe 
it  was  Scribe  —  has  said  that  there  are  only  seven  pos- 
sible dramatic  situations ;  that  is,  all  the  plays  in  the 
world  may  be  classed  with  some  one  of  seven  arche- 
typal dramas.-f  If  this  be  true,  the  astonishing  complex- 
ity of  mythology  taken  in  the  concrete,  as  compared 
with  its  extreme  simplicity  when  analyzed,  need  not  sur- 
prise us. 

The  extreme  limits  of  divergence  between  stories 
descended  from  a  common  root  are  probably  reached  in 
the  myths  of  light  and  darkness  with  which  the  present 
discussion  is  mainly  concerned.  The  subject  will  be 
best  elucidated  by  taking  a  single  one  of  these  myths 
and  following  its  various  fortunes  through  different 
regions  of  the  Aryan  world.    The  myth  of  Hercules  and 

*  Cox,  Manual  of  Mythology,  p.  134. 

+  In  his  interesting  appendix  to  Henderson's  Folk  Lore  of  the  Northern 
Counties  of  England,  Mr.  Baring-Gould  has  made  an  ingenious  and 
praiseworthy  attempt  to  reduce  the  entire  existing  mass  of  household 
legends  to  about  fifty  story-roots  ;  and  his  list,  though  both  redundant 
and  defective,  is  nevertheless,  as  an  empirical  classification,  very  instruc- 
tive. 


Il6  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

Cacus  has  been  treated  by  M.  Breal  in  an  essay  whicli  is 
one  of  the  most  valuable  contributions  ever  made  to  the 
study  of  (comparative  mythology;  and  while  following 
his  footsteps  our  task  will  be  an  easy  one. 

The  Lattle  between  Hercules  and  Cacus,  although  one 
of  the  oldest  of  the  traditions  common  to  tlie  whole 
Indo-European  race,  appears  in  Italy  as  a  purely  local 
legend,  and  is  narrated  as  such  by  Virgil,  in  the  eighth 
book  of  the  ^neid ;  by  Livy,  at  the  beginning  of  his  his- 
tory ;  and  by  Propertius  and  Ovid.  Hercules,  journeying 
through  Italy  after  his  victory  over  Geryon,  stops  to  rest 
by  the  bank  of  the  Tiber.  While  he  is  taking  his  repose, 
the  three-headed  monster  Cacus,  a  son  of  Vulcan  and  a 
formidable  brigand,  comes  and  steals  his  cattle,  and  drags 
them  tail-foremost  to  a  secret  cavern  in  the  rocks.  But 
the  lowing  of  the  cows  arouses  Hercules,  and  he  runs 
toward  the  cavern  where  the  robber,  already  frightened, 
has  taken  refuge.  Armed  with  a  huge  flinty  rock,  he 
breaks  open  the  entrance  of  the  cavern,  and  confronts 
the  demon  within,  who  vomits  forth  flames  at  him  and 
roars  like  the  thunder  in  the  storm-cloud.  After  a  short 
combat,  his  hideous  body  falls  at  the  feet  of  the  invincible 
hero,  who  erects  on  the  spot  an  altar  to  »Jupiter  Inventor, 
in  commemoration  of  the  recovery  of  his  cattle.  Ancient 
Eome  teemed  with  reminiscences  of  this  event,  which 
Livy  regarded  as  first  in  the  long  series  of  the  exploits 
of  his  countrymen.  The  place  where  Hercules  pastured 
his  oxen  was  known  long  after  as  the  Forum  Boarium  ; 
near  it  the  Porta  Trigemina  preserved  the  recollection  of 
the  monster's  triple  head ;  and  in  the  time  of  Diodorus 
Siculus  sight-seers  were  shown  the  cavern  of  Cacus  on 
the  slope  of  the  Aventine.  Every  tenth  day  the  earlier 
generations  of  Eomans  celebrated  the  victory  with  solemn 
sacrifices  at  the  Am  Maxima ;  and  on  days  of  triumph 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS. 


117 


the  fortunate  general  deposited  there  a  tithe  of  his  booty, 

to  be  distributed  among  the  citizens. 

In  this  famous  myth,  however,  the  god  Hercules  did 
not  originally  figure.  The  Latin  Hercules  was  an  essen- 
tially peaceful  and  domestic  deity,  watching  over  house- 
holds and  enclosures,  and  nearly  akin  to  Terminus  and 
the  Penates.  He  does  not  appear  to  have  been  a  solar 
divinity  at  all.  But  the  purely  accidental  resemblance 
of  his  name  to  that  of  the  Greek  deity  Herakles,*  and 
the  manifest  identity  of  the  Cacus-myth  with  the  story 
of  the  victory  of  Herakles  over  Geryon,  led  to  the  substi- 
tution of  Hercules  for  the  original  hero  of  the  legend, 
who  was  none  other  than  Jupiter,  called  by  his  Sabine 
name  Sancus.  Now  Johannes  Lydus  informs  us  that,  in 
Sabine,  Sancus  signified  "  the  sky,"  a  meaning  which  we 
have  already  seen  to  belong  to  the  name  Jiijyitcr.  The 
same  substitution  of  the  Greek  hero  for  the  Eoman 
divinity  led  to  the  alteration  of  the  name  of  the  demon 
overcome  by  his  thunderbolts.  The  corrupted  title  Cacus 
was  supposed  to  be  identical  with  the  Greek  word  kakos, 
meaning  "  evil,"  and  the  corruption  was  suggested  by  the 
epithet  of  Herakles,  Alexikakos,  or  "  the  averter  of  ill." 
Originally,  however,  the  name  was  Coccius,  "  he  who 

*  There  is  nothing  in  common  between  the  names  Hercules  and 
Herakles.  The  latter  is  a  compound,  formed  like  Themistokles ;  the 
former  is  a  simple  derivative  from  the  root  of  hcrcere,  "to  enclose."  If 
Herakles  had  any  equivalent  in  Latin,  it  would  necessarily  begin  with 
S,  and  not  with  H,  as  septa  corresponds  to  ^wra,  sequor  to  ^irofxai,  etc. 
It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  Mommsen,  in  the  fourth  edition  of 
his  History,  abandons  this  view,  and  observes  :  **  Auch  der  griechische 
Herakles  ist  friih  als  Herclus,  Hercoles,  Hercules  in  Italien  einheimisch 
und  dort  in  eigenthiimlicher  Weise  aufgefasst  worden,  wie  es  scheint 
zunachst  als  Gott  des  gewagten  Gewinns  und  der  ausserordentlichen 
VennogensveiTnehrung."  Eomische  Geschichte,  I.  181.  One  would 
gladly  learn  Mommsen's  reasons  for  recurring  to  this  apparently  less 
defensible  opinion. 


1 1 8  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

blinds  or  darkens,"  and  it  corresponds  literallj  to  the 
name  of  the  Greek  demon  Kaihias,  whom  an  old  proverb, 
preserved  by  Aulus  Gellius,  describes  as  a  stealer  of  the 
clouds.* 

Thus  the  significance  of  the  myth  becomes  apparent. 
The  three-headed  Cacus  is  seen  to  be  a  near  kinsman  of 
Geryon's  three-headed  dog  Orthros,  and  of  the  three- 
headed  Kerberos,  the  hell-hound  who  guards  the  dark 
regions  below  the  horizon.  He  is  the  original  werewolf 
or  Eakshasa,  the  fiend  of  the  storm  who  steals  the  bright 
cattle  of  Helios,  and  hides  them  in  the  black  cavernous 
rock,  from  which  they  are  afterwards  rescued  by  the 
schamir  or  lightning-stone  of  the  solar  hero.  The  phys- 
ical character  of  the  myth  is  apparent  even  in  the 
description  of  Yirgil,  which  reads  wonderfully  like  a 
Vedic  hymn  in  celebration  of  the  exploits  of  Indra.  But 
when  we  turn  to  the  Veda  itseK,  we  find  the  correctness 
of  the  interpretation  demonstrated  again  and  again,  with 
inexhaustible  prodigality  of  evidence.  Here  we  encoun- 
ter again  the  three-headed  Orthros  under  the  identical 
title  of  Vritra,  "he  who  shrouds  or  envelops,"  called 
also  Qushna,  "  he  who  parches,"  Pani,  "  the  robber,"  and 
Ahi,  "  the  strangler."  In  many  hymns  of  the  Eig-Veda 
the  story  is  told  over  and  over,  like  a  musical  theme 
arranged  with  variations.  Indra,  the  god  of  light,  is  a 
herdsman  who  tends  a  herd  of  bright  golden  or  violet- 
coloured  cattle.  Vritra,  a  snake-like  monster  with  three 
heads,  steals  them  and  hides  them  in  a  cavern,  but  Indra 
slays  him  as  Jupiter  slew  Caecius,  and  the  cows  are 
recovered.  The  language  of  the  myth  is  so  significant, 
that  the  Hindu  commentators  of  the  Veda  have  them- 
selves given  explanations  of  it  similar  to  those  proposed 

*  For  the  relations  between  Sancus  and  Herakles,  see  Preller, 
Romische  Mythologie,  p.  635  ;  Volluier,  Mythologie,  p.  970. 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS. 


by  modem  philologists.  To  them  the  legend  never 
became  devoid  of  sense,  as  the  myth  of  Geryon  appeared 
to  Greek  scholars  like  Apollodoros.* 

These  celestial  cattle,  with  their  resplendent  coats  of 
purple  and  gold,  are  the  clouds  lit  up  by  the  solar  rays ; 
but  the  demon  who  steals  them  is  not  always  the  fiend 
of  the  storm,  acting  in  that  capacity.  They  are  stolen 
every  night  by  Vritra  the  concealer,  and  Csecius  the 
darkener,  and  Indra  is  obliged  to  spend  hours  in  looking 
for  them,  sending  Sarama,  the  inconstant  twiliglit,  to 
negotiate  for  their  recovery.  Between  the  storm -my tli 
and  the  myth  of  night  and  morning  the  resemblance  is 
sometimes  so  close  as  to  confuse  the  interpretation  of  the 
two.  Many  legends  which  Max  Muller  explains  as 
myths  of  the  victory  of  day  over  night  are  explained  by 
Dr.  Kuhn  as  storm-myths  ;  and  the  disagreement  between 
two  such  powerful  champions  would  be  a  standing 
reproach  to  what  is  rather  prematurely  called  the  science 
of  comparative  mythology,  were  it  not  easy  to  show  that 
the  difference  is  merely  apparent  and  non-essential.  It 
is  the  old  story  of  the  shield  with  two  sides ;  and  a  com- 
parison of  the  ideas  fundamental  to  these  myths  will 
show  that  there  is  no  valid  ground  for  disagreement  in 
the  interpretation  of  them.  The  myths  of  schamir  and 
the  divining-rod,  analyzed  in  a  previous  paper,  explain 
the  rending  of  the  thunder-cloud  and  the  procuring  of 
water  without  especial  reference  to  any  struggle  between 
opposing  divinities.  But  in  the  myth  of  Hercules  and 
Cacus,  the  fundamental  idea  is  the  victory  of  the  solar 
god  over  the  robber  who  steals  the  light.  Now  whether 
the  robber  carries  off  tlie  light  in  the  evening  when  Indra 
has  gone  to  sleep,  or  boldly  rears  his  black  form  against 
the  sky  during  the  daytime,  causing  darkness  to  spread 

♦  Burnouf,  Bhngavata-Pur&na,  III.  p.  Ixxxvi ;  Br^al,  op.  cit.  p.  98. 


120 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


over  the  earth,  would  make  little  difference  to  the  framers 
of  the  myth.  To  a  chicken  a  solar  eclipse  is  the  same 
thing  as  nightfall,  and  he  goes  to  roost  accordingly. 
Why,  then,  should  the  primitive  thinker  have  made  a 
distinction  between  the  darkening  of  the  sky  caused  by 
black  clouds  and  that  caused  by  the  rotation  of  the 
earth  ?  He  had  no  more  conception  of  the  scientific 
explanation  of  these  phenomena  than  the  chicken  has 
of  the  scientific  explanation  of  an  eclipse.  For  him  it 
was  enough  to  know  that  the  solar  radiance  was  stolen, 
in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  and  to  suspect  that  the 
same  demon  was  to  blame  for  both  robberies. 

The  Veda  itself  sustains  this  view.  It  is  certain  that 
the  victory  of  Indra  over  Vritra  is  essentially  the  same 
as  his  victory  over  the  Panis.  Vritra,  the  storm-fiend,  is 
himself  called  one  of  the  Panis ;  yet  the  latter  are  uni- 
formly represented  as  night-demons.  They  steal  Indra's 
golden  cattle, and  drive  them  by  circuitous  paths  to  a 
dark  hiding-place  near  the  eastern  horizon.  Indra  sends 
the  dawn-nymph,  Sarama,  to  search  for  them,  but  as  she 
comes  within  sight  of  the  dark  stable,  the  Panis  try  to 
coax  her  to  stay  with  them:  "Let  us  make  thee  our 
sister,  do  not  go  away  again ;  we  will  give  thee  part  of 
the  cows,  0  darling."  *  According  to  the  text  of  this 
hymn,  she  scorns  their  solicitations,  but  elsewhere  the 
fickle  dawn-nymph  is  said  to  coquet  with  the  powers 
of  darkness.  She  does  not  care  for  their  cows,  but  will 
take  a  drink  of  milk,  if  they  will  be  so  good  as  to  get  it 
for  her.  Then  she  goes  back  and  tells  Indra  that  she 
cannot  find  the  cows.  He  kicks  her  with  his  foot,  and 
she  runs  back  to  the  Panis,  followed  by  the  god,  who 
smites  them  all  with  his  unerring  arrows  and  recovers 
the  stolen  light.    From  such  a  simple  beginning  as  this 

*  Max  Miiller,  Science  of  Language,  II  48  •4. 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS. 


121 


has  been  deduced  the  Greek  myth  of  the  faithlessness  of 
Helen.* 

These  night-demons,  the  Panis,  though  not  apparently- 
regarded  with  any  strong  feeling  of  moral  condemnation, 
are  nevertheless  hated  and  dreaded  as  the  authors  of 
calamity.  They  not  only  steal  the  daylight,  but  they 
parch  the  earth  and  wither  the  fruits,  and  they  slay 
vegetation  during  the  winter  months.  As  Ccecius,  the 
"  darkener,"  became  ultimately  changed  into  Cacus,  the 
"evil  one,"  so  the  name  of  Vritra,  the  "concealer," 
the  most  famous  of  the  Panis,  was  gradually  generalized 
until  it  came  to  mean  "  enemy,"  like  the  English  word 
fiend,  and  began  to  be  applied  indiscriminately  to  any 
kind  of  evil  spirit.  In  one  place  he  is  called  Adeva,  the 
"enemy  of  the  gods,"  an  epithet  exactly  equivalent  to 
the  Persian  dev. 

In  the  Zendavesta  the  myth  of  Hercules  and  Cacus 
has  given  rise  to  a  vast  system  of  theology.  The  fiendish 
Panis  are  concentrated  in  Ahriman  or  Anro-mainyas, 
whose  name  signifies  the  "  spirit  of  darkness,"  and  who 
carries  on  a  perpetual  warfare  against  Ormuzd  or  Ahura- 
mazda,  who  is  described  by  his  ordinary  surname,  Spento- 
mainyas,  as  the  "  spirit  of  light."  The  ancient  polytheism 
here  gives  place  to  a  refined  dualism,  not  very  different 
from  what  in  many  Christian  sects  has  passed  current  as 
monotheism.  Ahriman  is  the  archfiend,  who  strujrffles 
with  Ormuzd,  not  for  the  possession  of  a  herd  of  perisha- 
ble cattle,  but  for  the  dominion  of  the  universe.  Ormuzd 
creates  the  world  pure  and  beautiful,  but  Ahriman  comes 

*  As  Max  Miiller  observes,  "apart  from  all  mythological  considera- 
tions, Saramd  in  Sanskrit  is  the  same  word  as  Helena  in  Greek." 
Op.  cit.  p.  490.  The  names  correspond  phonetically  letter  for  letter,  as 
Surya  corresponds  to  Helios,  Sdramiyas  to  Hermeias,  and  Aharyu  to 
Achilleus.  Miiller  has  plausibly  suggested  that  Paris  similarly  answers 
to  the  Panis. 

6 


122 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


after  him  and  creates  everything  that  is  evil  in  it.  He 
not  only  keeps  the  earth  covered  with  darkness  during 
half  of  the  day,  and  withholds  the  rain  and  destroys  the 
crops,  but  he  is  the  author  of  all  evil  thoughts  and  the 
instigator  of  all  wicked  actions.  Like  his  progenitor 
Vritra  and  his  offspring  Satan,  he  is  represented  under 
the  form  of  a  serpent ;  and  the  destruction  which  ulti- 
mately awaits  these  demons  is  also  in  reserve  for  him. 
Eventually  there  is  to  be  a  day  of  reckoning,  when  Ahri- 
man  will  be  bound  in  chains  and  rendered  powerless,  or 
when,  according  to  another  account,  he  will  be  converted 
to  righteousness,  as  Burns  hoped  and  Origen  believed 
would  be  the  case  with  Satan. 

This  dualism  of  the  ancient  Persians  has  exerted  a 
powerful  influence  upon  the  development  of  Christian 
theology.  The  very  idea  of  an  archfiend  Satan,  which 
Christianity  received  from  Judaism,  seems  either  to  have 
been  suggested  by  the  Persian  Ahriman,  or  at  least  to 
have  derived  its  principal  characteristics  from  that 
source.  There  is  no  evidence  that  the  Jews,  previous  to 
the  Babylonish  captivity,  possessed  the  conception  of  a 
Devil  as  the  author  of  all  evil.  In  the  earlier  books  of 
the  Old  Testament  Jehovah  is  represented  as  dispensing 
with  his  own  hand  the  good  and  the  evil,  like  the  Zeus 
of  the  Iliad.*  The  story  of  the  serpent  in  Eden  —  an 
Aryan  story  in  every  particular,  which  has  crept  into  the 
Pentateuch  —  is  not  once  alluded  to  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment; and  the  notion  of  Satan  as  the  author  of  evil 
appears  only  in  the  later  books,  composed  after  the  Jews 
had  come  into  close  contact  with  Persian  ideas.f    In  the 

*  "I  create  evil,"  Isaiah  xlv.  7  ;  "Shall  there  be  evil  in  the  city, 
and  the  Lord  hath  not  done  it  ?"  Amos  iii.  6;  cf.  lliarl,  xxiv.  527,  and 
contrast  2  Samuel  xxiv.  1  with  1  Chronicles  xxi.  1. 

t  Nor  is  there  any  ground  for  believing  that  the  serpent  in  the  Eden- 


LIGET  AND  DARKNESS. 


123 


Book  of  Job,  as  R(^ville  observes,  Satan  is  "  still  a  mem- 
ber of  the  celestial  court,  being  one  of  the  sons  of  the 
Elohim,  but  having  as  his  special  office  the  continual 
accusation  of  men,  and  having  become  so  suspicious  by 
his  practice  as  public  accuser,  that  he  believes  in  the 
virtue  of  no  one,  and  always  presupposes  interested 
motives  for  the  purest  manifestations  of  human  piety." 
In  this  way  the  character  of  this  angel  became  injured, 
and  he  became  more  and  more  an  object  of  dread  and 
dislike  to  men,  until  the  later  Jews  ascribed  to  him  all 
the  attributes  of  Ahriman,  and  in  this  singularly  altered 
shape  he  passed  into  Christian  theology.  Between  the 
Satan  of  the  Book  of  Job  and  the  mediieval  Devil  the 
metamorphosis  is  as  gi-eat  as  that  which  degraded  the 
stern  Erinys,  who  brings  evil  deeds  to  light,  into  the 
demon-like  Fury  who  torments  wrong-doers  in  Tartarus ; 
and,  making  allowance  for  difference  of  circumstances, 
the  process  of  degradation  has  been  very  nearly  the  same 
in  the  two  cases. 

The  mediaeval  conception  of  the  Devil  is  a  grotesque 
compound  of  elements  derived  from  all  the  systems  of 
pagan  mythology  which  Christianity  superseded.  He  is 
primarily  a  rebellious  angel,  expelled  from  heaven  along 
with  his  followers,  like  the  giants  who  attempted  to  scale 
Olympos,  and  like  the  impious  Efreets  of  Arabian  legend 
who  revolted  against  the  beneficent  rule  of  Solomon.  As 
the  serpent  prince  of  the  outer  darkness,  he  retains  the 
old  characteristics  of  Vritra,  Ahi,  Typhon,  and  Echidna. 

myth  is  intended  for  Satan.  The  identification  is  entirely  the  work  of 
modern  dogmatic  theology,  and  is  due,  naturally  enough,  to  the  habit, 
so  common  alike  among  theologians  and  laymen,  of  reasoning  about  the 
Bible  as  if  it  were  a  single  book,  and  not  a  collection  of  writings  of  dif- 
ferent ages  and  of  very  different  degrees  of  historic  authenticity.  In  a 
future  work,  entitled  "Aryana  Vaedjo,"  I  hope  to  examine,  at  con- 
siderable length,  this  interesting  myth  of  the  garden  of  Eden. 


124 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


As  the  black  dog  which  appears  behind  the  stove  in  Dr. 
Faust's  study,  he  is  the  classic  hell-hound  Kerberos,  the 
Vedic  (Jarvara.  From  the  sylvan  deity  Pan  he  gets  his 
goat-like  body,  his  horns  and  cloven  hoofs.  Like  the 
wind-god  Orpheus,  to  whose  music  the  trees  bent  their 
heads  to  listen,  he  is  an  unrivalled  player  on  the  bagpipes. 
Like  those  other  wind-gods  the  psychopomp  Hermes  and 
the  wild  huntsman  Odin,  he  is  the  prince  of  the  powers 
of  the  air :  his  flight  through  the  midnight  sky,  attended 
by  his  troop  of  witches  mounted  on  their  brooms,  which 
sometimes  break  the  boughs  and  sweep  the  leaves  from 
the  trees,  is  the  same  as  the  furious  chase  of  the  Erlking 
Odin  or  the  Burckar  Vittikab.  He  is  Dionysos,  who 
causes  red  wine  to  flow  from  the  dry  wood,  alike  on  the 
deck  of  the  Tyrrhenian  pirate-ship  and  in  Auerbach's 
cellar  at  Leipzig.  He  is  Wayland,  the  smith,  a  skilful 
worker  in  metals  and  a  wonderful  architect,  like  the  classic 
fire-god  Hephaistos  or  Vulcan ;  and,  like  Hephaistos,  he 
is  lame  from  the  effects  of  his  fall  from  heaven.  From 
the  lightning-god  Thor  he  obtains  his  red  beard,  his 
pitchfork,  and  his  power  over  thunderbolts ;  and,  like 
that  ancient  deity,  he  is  in  the  habit  of  beating  his  wife 
behind  the  door  when  the  rain  falls  during  sunshine. 
Finally,  he  takes  a  hint  from  Poseidon  and  from  the 
swan-maidens,  and  appears  as  a  water-imp  or  Nixy 
(whence  probably  his  name  of  Old  Nick),  and  as  the 
Davy  (devci)  whose  "  locker "  is  situated  at  the  bottom 
of  the  sea.* 

According  to  the  Scotch  divines  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  the  Devil  is  a  learned  scholar  and  profound 
thinker.    Having  profited  by  six  thousand  years  of  in- 

*  For  further  particulars  see  Cox,  Mythology  of  the  Aryan  ITations, 
Vol.  II.  pp.  358,  366  ;  to  which  I  am  indebted  for  several  of  the  details 
here  given.    Compare  Welcker,  Griechische  Gbtterlehre,  I.  661,  sey. 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS. 


125 


tense  study  and  meditation,  he  has  all  science,  philoso- 
phy, and  theolog}^  at  his  tongue's  end ;  and,  as  his  skill 
has  increased  with  age,  he  is  far  more  than  a  match  for 
mortals  in  cunning.*  Such,  however,  is  not  the  view 
taken  by  mediaeval  mythology,  which  usually  represents 
his  stupidity  as  equalling  his  malignity.  The  victory  of 
Hercules  over  Cacus  is  repeated  in  a  hundred  mediaeval 
legends  in  which  the  Devil  is  overreached  and  made  a 
laughing-stock.  The  germ  of  this  notion  may  be  found 
in  the  blinding  of  Polyphemos  by  Odysseus,  which  is  it- 
self a  victory  of  the  sun-hero  over  the  night-demon,  and 
which  curiously  reappears  in  a  Middle-Age  story  narrated 
by  Mr.  Cox.  "  The  Devil  asks  a  man  who  is  moulding 
buttons  what  he  may  be  doing ;  and  when  the  man  an- 
swers that  he  is  moulding  eyes,  asks  him  further  whether 
he  can  give  him  a  pair  of  new  eyes.  He  is  told  to  come 
again  another  day ;  and  when  he  makes  his  appearance 
accordingly,  the  man  tells  him  that  the  operation  cannot 
be  performed  rightly  unless  he  is  first  tightly  bound  with 
his  back  fastened  to  a  bench.  While  he  is  thus  pinioned 
he  asks  the  man's  name.  The  reply  is  Issi  ('  himself '). 
When  the  lead  is  melted,  the  Devil  opens  his  eyes  wide 
to  receive  the  deadly  stream.  As  soon  as  he  is  blinded, 
he  starts  up  in  agony,  bearing  away  the  bench  to  which 
he  had  been  bound ;  and  when  some  workpeople  in  the 
fields  ask  him  who  had  thus  treated  him,  his  answer  is, 
*  Issi  teggi '  ('  Self  did  it ').  With  a  laugh  they  bid  liim 
lie  on  the  bed  which  he  has  made :  *  selbst  gethan,  selbst 
habe.'  The  Devil  died  of  his  new  eyes,  and  was  never 
seen  again." 

*  Many  amusing  passages  from  Scotch  theologians  are  cited  in  Buckle's 
History  of  Civilization,  Vol.  II.  p.  368.  The  same  belief  is  implied  in 
the  quaint  monkish  tale  of  *' Celestinus  and  the  Miller's  Horse."  See 
Tales  from  the  Gesta  Romanorum,  p.  134. 


126 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


In  his  attempts  to  obtain  human  souls  the  Devil  is 
frequently  foiled  by  the  superior  cunning  of  mortals. 
Once,  he  agreed  to  build  a  house  for  a  peasant  in  ex- 
change for  the  peasant's  soul ;  but  if  the  house  were  not 
finished  before  cockcrow,  the  contract  was  to  be  null  and 
void.  Just  as  the  Devil  was  putting  on  the  last  tile  the 
man  imitated  a  cockcrow  and  waked  up  all  the  roosters 
in  the  neighbourhood,  so  that  the  fiend  had  his  labour  for 
his  pains.  A  merchant  of  Louvain  once  sold  liimself  to 
the  Devil,  who  heaped  upon  him  all  manner  of  riches 
for  seven  years,  and  then  came  to  get  him.  The  mer- 
chant "  took  the  Devil  in  a  friendly  manner  by  the  hand 
and,  as  it  was  just  evening,  said,  '  Wife,  bring  a  light 
quickly  for  the  gentleman.'  '  That  is  not  at  all  neces- 
sary,' said  the  Devil ;  '  I  am  merely  come  to  fetch  you.' 
'  Yes,  yes,  that  I  know  very  well,'  said  the  merchant, 
*  only  just  grant  me  the  time  till  this  little  candle-end  is 
burnt  out,  as  I  have  a  few  letters  to  sign  and  to  put  on 
my  coat.'  *  Very  well,'  said  the  Devil,  '  but  only  till  the 
candle  is  burnt  out.'  '  Good,'  said  the  merchant,  and 
going  into  the  next  room,  ordered  the  maid-servant  to 
place  a  large  cask  full  of  water  close  to  a  very  deep  pit 
that  was  dug  in  the  garden.  The  men-servants  also  car- 
ried, each  of  them,  a  cask  to  the  spot ;  and  when  all  was 
done,  they  were  ordered  each  to  take  a  shovel,  and  stand 
round  the  pit.  The  merchant  then  returned  to  the  Devil, 
who  seeing  that  not  more  than  about  an  inch  of  candle 
remained,  said,  laughing,  '  Now  get  yourself  ready,  it  will 
soon  be  burnt  out.'  '  That  I  see,  and  am  content ;  but  I 
shall  hold  you  to  your  word,  and  stay  till  it  is  burnt.' 
'  Of  course,'  answered  the  Devil ;  '  I  stick  to  my  word.' 
'It  is  dark  in  the  next  room,'  continued  the  merchant, 
'  but  I  must  find  the  great  book  with  clasps,  so  let  me 
just  take  the  light  for  one  moment.'    '  Certainly/  said  the 


LIGBT  AND  DARKNESS, 


127 


Devil, '  but  I  '11  go  with  you.*  He  did  so,  and  the  mer- 
chant's trepidation  was  now  on  the  increase.  When  in 
the  next  room  he  said  on  a  sudden,  '  Ah,  now  I  know, 
the  key  is  in  the  garden  door.'  And  with  these  words  he 
ran  out  with  the  light  into  the  garden,  and  before  the 
Devil  could  overtake  him,  threw  it  into  the  pit,  and  the 
men  and  the  maids  poured  water  upon  it,  and  then  filled 
up  the  hole  with  earth.  Now  came  the  Devil  into  the 
garden  and  asked,  '  Well,  did  you  get  the  key  ?  and  how 
is  it  with  the  candle  ?  where  is  it  ? '  '  The  candle  ? '  said 
the  merchant.  *  Yes,  the  candle.'  '  Ha,  ha,  ha  !  it  is  not 
yet  burnt  out,'  answered  the  merchant,  laughing,  '  and 
will  not  be  burnt  out  for  the  next  fifty  years ;  it  lies 
there  a  hundred  fathoms  deep  in  the  earth.'  When  the 
Devil  heard  this  he  screamed  awfully,  and  went  off  with 
a  most  intolerable  stench."  * 

One  day  a  fowler,  who  was  a  terrible  bungler  and 
could  n't  hit  a  bird  at  a  dozen  paces,  sold  his  soul  to  the 
Devil  in  order  to  become  a  Freischtitz.  The  fiend  was  to 
come  for  him  in  seven  years,  but  must  be  always  able  to 
name  the  animal  at  which  he  was  shooting,  otherwise  the 
compact  was  to  be  nullified.  After  that  day  the  fowler 
never  missed  his  aim,  and  never  did  a  fowler  command 
sucli  wages.  When  the  seven  years  were  out  the  fowler 
told  all  these  things  to  his  wife,  and  the  twain  hit  upon 
an  expedient  for  cheating  the  Devil.  The  woman 
stripped  herself,  daubed  her  whole  body  with  molasses, 
and  rolled  herself  up  in  a  feather-bed,  cut  open  for  this 
purpose.  Then  she  hopped  and  skipped  about  the  field 
where  her  husband  stood  parleying  with  Old  Kick. 
"  There 's  a  shot  for  you,  fire  away,"  said  the  Devil.  "  Of 
course  1 11  fire,  but  do  you  first  tell  me  what  kind  of  a 
bird  it  is ;  else  our  agreement  is  cancelled.  Old  Boy." 

♦  Thorpe,  Northern  Mythology,  Vol.  II.  p.  258. 


128 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


There  was  no  help  for  it ;  the  Devil  had  to  own  himself 
nonplussed,  and  off  he  fled,  with  a  whiff  of  brimstone 
which  nearly  suffocated  the  Freischiitz  and  his  good 
woman.* 

In  the  legend  of  Gambrinus,  the  fiend  is  still  more  in- 
gloriously  defeated.  Gambrinus  was  a  fiddler,  who,  be- 
ing jilted  by  his  sweetheart,  went  out  into  the  woods  to 
hang  himself  As  he  was  sitting  on  the  bough,  with  the 
cord  about  his  neck,  preparatory  to  taking  the  fatal 
plunge,  suddenly  a  tall  man  in  a  green  coat  appeared 
before  him,  and  offered  his  services.  He  might  become 
as  wealthy  as  he  liked,  and  make  his  sweetheart  burst 
with  vexation  at  her  own  folly,  but  in  thirty  years  he 
must  give  up  his  soul  to  Beelzebub.  The  bargain  was 
struck,  for  Gambrinus  thought  thirty  years  a  long  time 
to  enjoy  one's  self  in,  and  perhaps  the  Devil  might  get 
him  in  any  event ;  as  well  be  hung  for  a  sheep  as  for  a 
lamb.  Aided  by  Satan,  he  invented  chiming-bells  and 
lager-beer,  for  both  of  which  achievements  his  name  is 
held  in  grateful  remembrance  by  the  Teuton.  No  sooner 
had  the  Holy  Eoman  Emperor  quaffed  a  gallon  or  two  of 
the  new  beverage  than  he  made  Gambrinus  Duke  of 
Brabant  and  Count  of  Flanders,  and  then  it  was  the 
fiddler's  turn  to  laugh  at  the  discomfiture  of  his  old 
sweetheart.  Gambrinus  kept  clear  of  women,  says  the 
legend,  and  so  lived  in  peace.  For  thirty  years  he  sat 
beneath  his  belfry  with  the  chimes,  meditatively  drink- 
ing beer  with  his  nobles  and  burghers  around  him.  Then 
Beelzebub  sent  Jocko,  one  of  his  imps,  with  orders  to 

*  Thorpe,  IsTorthem  Mythology,  "Vol.  II.  p.  259.  In  the  Norse  story 
of  *'  Not  a  Pin  to  choose  between  them,"  the  old  woman  is  in  doubt  as 
to  her  own  identity,  on  waking  up  after  the  butcher  has  dipped  her  in  a 
tar-barrel  and  rolled  her  on  a  heap  of  feathers  ;  and  when  Tray  barks  at 
her,  her  perplexity  is  as  great  as  the  Devil's  when  fooled  by  the  Frei* 
Bchiitz.    See  Dasent,  Norse  Tales,  p.  199. 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS. 


129 


bring  back  Gambrinus  before  midnight.  But  Jocko  was, 
like  Swiveller's  Marchioness,  ignorant  of  the  taste  of  beer, 
never  having  drunk  of  it  even  in  a  sip,  and  the  Flemish 
schoppen  were  too  much  for  him.  He  fell  into  a  drunken 
sleep,  and  did  not  wake  up  until  noon  next  day,  at  which 
he  was  so  mortified  that  he  had  not  the  face  to  go  back 
to  hell  at  all.  So  Gambrinus  lived  on  tranquilly  for  a 
century  or  two,  and  drank  so  much  beer  that  he  turned 
into  a  beer-barrel* 

The  character  of  gullibility  attributed  to  the  Devil  in 
these  legends  is  probably  derived  from  the  Trolls,  or 
"  night-folk,"  of  Northern  mythology.  In  most  respects 
the  Trolls  resemble  the  Teutonic  elves  and  fairies,  and 
the  Jinn  or  Efreets  of  the  Arabian  Nights ;  but  their 
pedigree  is  less  honourable.  The  fairies,  or  "White 
Ladies,"  were  not  originally  spirits  of  darkness,  but  were 
nearly  akin  to  the  swan-maidens,  dawn-nymphs,  and 
dryads,  and  though  their  wrath  was  to  be  dreaded,  they 
were  not  malignant  by  nature.  Christianity,-  having  no 
place  for  such  beings,  degraded  them  into  something  like 
imps  ;  the  most  charitable  theory  being  that  they  were 
angels  who  had  remained  neutral  during  Satan's  rebel- 
lion, in  punishment  for  wliich  Michael  expelled  them 
from  heaven,  but  has  left  their  ultimate  fate  unannounced 
until  the  day  of  judgment.  The  Jinn  appear  to  have  been 
similarly  degraded  on  the  rise  of  Mohammedanism.  But 
the  Trolls  were  always  imps  of  darkness.  They  are  de- 
scended from  the  Jotuns,  or  Frost-Giants  of  Northern 
paganism,  and  they  correspond  to  the  Panis,  or  night- 
demons  of  the  Veda.  In  many  Norse  tales  they  are  said 
to  burst  when  they  see  the  risen  sun.-f-  They  eat  human 
flesh,  are  ignorant  of  the  simplest  arts,  and  live  in  the 

*  See  Deulin,  Contes  d'un  Buveur  de  Bifere,  pp.  3  -  29. 

+  Dasent,  Popular  Tales  from  the  Norse,  No.  III.  and  No.  XLII. 

6*  1 


130  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

deepest  recesses  of  the  forest  or  in  caverns  on  the  hill- 
side, where  the  sunlight  never  penetrates.  Some  of  these 
characteristics  may  very  likely  have  been  suggested  by 
reminiscences  of  the  primeval  Lapps,  from  whom  the 
Aryan  invaders  wrested  the  dominion  of  Europe.*  In 
some  legends  the  Trolls  are  represented  as  an  ancient 
race  of  beings  now  superseded  by  the  human  race. 
" '  What  sort  of  an  earth-worm  is  this  ? '  said  one  Giant 
to  another,  when  they  met  a  man  as  they  walked. 
'  These  are  the  earth-worms  that  will  one  day  eat  us  up, 
brother,'  answered  the  other ;  and  soon  both  Giants  leit 
that  part  of  Germany."  " '  See  what  pretty  playthings, 
mother  ! '  cries  the  Giant's  daughter,  as  she  unties  her 
apron,  and  shows  her  a  plough,  and  horses,  and  a  peasant. 
'  Back  with  them  this  instant,'  cries  the  mother  in  wrath, 
*  and  put  them  down  as  carefully  as  you  can,  for  these 
playthings  can  do  our  race  great  harm,  and  when  these 
come  we  must  budge.'"  Very  naturally  the  primitive 
Teuton,  possessing  already  the  conception  of  night-de- 
mons, would  apply  it  to  these  men  of  the  woods  whom  even 
to  this  day  his  uneducated  descendants  believe  to  be  sor- 
cerers, able  to  turn  men  into  wolves.  But  whatever  con- 
tributions historical  fact  may  have  added  to  his  character, 
the  Troll  is  originally  a  creation  of  mythology,  like  Poly- 
phemos,  whom  he  resembles  in  his  uncouth  person,  his 
cannibal  appetite,  and  his  lack  of  wit.  His  ready  gulli- 
bility is  shown  in  the  story  of  "  Boots  who  ate  a  Match 
with  the  Troll."  Boots,  the  brother  of  Cinderella,  and 
the  counterpart  alike  of  Jack  the  Giant-killer,  and  of 
Odysseus,  is  the  youngest  of  three  brothers  who  go  into 
a  forest  to  cut  wood.  The  Troll  appears  and  threatens  to 
kill  any  one  wdio  dares  to  meddle  with  his  timber.  The 

*  See  Dasent's  Introduction,  p.  cxxxix  ;  Campbell,  Tales  of  the  West 
Highlands,  Vol.  IV.  p.  344  ;  and  Williams,  Indian  Epic  Poetry,  p.  10. 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS. 


elder  brothers  flee,  but  Boots  puts  on  a  bold  face.  He 
pulled  a  cheese  out  of  his  scrip  and  squeezed  it  till  the 
whey  began  to  spurt  out.  "  Hold  your  tongue,  you  dirty 
Troll,"  said  lie,  "  or  I  '11  squeeze  you  as  I  squeeze  this 
stone."  So  the  Troll  gi'ew  timid  and  begged  to  be  spared,* 
and  Boots  let  him  off  on  condition  that  he  would  hew  all 
day  with  him.  They  worked  till  nightfall,  and  the  Troll's 
giant  strength  accomplished  wonders.  Then  Boots  went 
liome  with  the  Troll,  having  arranged  that  he  should  get 
the  water  while  his  host  made  the  fire.  When  they 
reached  the  hut  there  were  two  enormous  iron  pails,  so 
heavy  that  none  but  a  Troll  could  lift  them,  but  Boots 
was  not  to  be  frightened.  "  Bah  ! "  said  he.  "  Do  you 
suppose  I  am  going  to  get  water  in  those  paltry  hand- 
basins  ?  Hold  on  till  I  go  and  get  the  spring  itself ! " 
"  0  dear  !  "  said  the  Troll,  "  I 'd  rather  not ;  do  you  make 
the  fire,  and  I  '11  get  the  water."  Then  when  the  soup 
was  made.  Boots  challenged  his  new  friend  to  an  eating- 
match  ;  and  tying  his  scrip  in  front  of  him,  proceeded  to 
pour  soup  into  ijb  by  the  ladleful.  By  and  by  the  giant 
threw  down  his  spoon  in  despair,  and  owned  himself  con- 
quered. "  No,  no  !  don't  give  it  up  yet,"  said  Boots,  "just 
cut  a  hole  in  your  stomach  like  this,  and  you  can  eat  for- 
ever." And  suiting  the  action  to  the  words,  he  ripped 
open  his  scrip.  So  the  silly  Troll  cut  himself  open  and 
died,  and  Boots  carried  off  all  his  gold  and  silver. 

Once  there  was  a  Troll  whose  name  was  Wind-and- 

*  "A  Leopard  was  returning  home  from  hunting  on  one  occasion, 
when  he  lighted  on  the  kraal  of  a  Earn.  Now  the  Leopard  had  never 
seen  a  Ram  before,  and  accordingly,  approaching  submissively,  he  said, 
'  Good  day,  friend  !  what  may  your  name  be  ? '  The  other,  in  his  gruff 
voice,  and  striking  his  breast  with  his  forefoot,  said,  '  I  am  a  Ram  ;  who 
are  you?'  *A  Leopard,'  answered  the  other,  more  dead  than  alive; 
and  then,  taking  leave  of  the  Ram,  he  ran  home  as  fast  a§  he  CQuld." 
Bleek,  Hottentot  Fables,  p.  24. 


132  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

Weather,  and  Saint  Olaf  hired  him  to  build  a  church. 

If  the  church  were  completed  within  a  certain  specified 
time,  the  Troll  was  to  get  possession  of  Saint  Olaf.  The 
saint  then  planned  such  a  stupendous  edifice  that  he 
thought  the  giant  would  be  forever  building  it ;  but  the 
work  went  on  briskly,  and  at  the  appointed  day  nothing 
remained  but  to  finish  the  point  of  the  spire.  In  his 
consternation  Olaf  rushed  about  until  he  passed  by  the 
Troll's  den,  when  he  heard  the  giantess  telhng  her  chil- 
dren that  their  father,  Wind-and- Weather,  was  finishing 
his  church,  and  would  be  home  to-morrow  with  Saint 
Olaf.  So  the  saint  ran  back  to  the  church  and  bawled 
out,  "  Hold  on,  Wind-and-Weather,  your  spire  is  crook- 
ed ! "  Then  the  giant  tumbled  down  from  the  roof  and 
broke  into  a  thousand  pieces.  As  in  the  cases  of  the 
Mara  and  the  werewolf,  the  enchantment  was  at  an  end 
as  soon  as  the  enchanter  was  called  by  name. 

These  Trolls,  like  the  Arabian  Efreets,  had  an  ugly 
habit  of  carrying  off  beautiful  princesses.  This  is  strictly 
in  keeping  with  their  character  as  night-demons,  or  Panis. 
In  the  stories  of  Punchkin  and  the  Heartless  Giant,  the 
night-demon  carries  off  the  dawn-maiden  after  having 
turned  into  stone  her  solar  brethren.  But  Boots,  or  In- 
dra,  in  search  of  his  kinsfolk,  by  and  by  arrives  at  the 
Troll's  castle,  and  then  the  dawn-nymph,  true  to  her 
fickle  character,  cajoles  the  Giant  and  enables  Boots  to 
destroy  him.  In  the  famous  myth  which  serves  as  the 
basis  for  the  Yolsunga  Saga  and  the  Nibelungenlied,  the 
dragon  Fafnir  steals  the  Valkyrie  Brynhild  and  keeps 
her  shut  up  in  a  castle  on  the  Glistening  Heath,  until 
some  champion  shall  be  found  powerful  enough  to  rescue 
her.  The  castle  is  as  hard  to  enter  as  that  of  the  Sleep- 
ing Beauty ;  but  Sigurd,  the  Northern  Achilleus,  riding 
on  his  deathless  horse,  and  wielding  his  resistless  sword 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS.  I33 

Gram,  forces  his  way  in,  slays  Fafnir,  and  recovers  the 
Valkyrie. 

In  the  preceding  paper  the  Valkyries  were  shown  to 
belong  to  the  class  of  cloud-maidens ;  and  between  the 
tale  of  Sigurd  and  that  of  Hercules  and  Cacus  there  is 
no  difference,  save  that  the  bright  sunlit  clouds  which  are 
represented  in  the  one  as  cows  are  in  the  other  repre- 
sented as  maidens.  In  the  myth  of  the  Argonauts  they 
reappear  as  the  Golden  Fleece,  carried  to  the  far  east  by 
Phrixos  and  Helle,  who  are  themselves  Niblungs,  or 
"  Children  of  the  Mist "  (Nephele),  and  there  guarded  by 
a  dragon.  In  all  these  myths  a  treasure  is  stolen  by  a 
fiend  of  darkness,  and  recovered  by  a  hero  of  light,  who 
slays  the  demon.  And  —  remembering  what  Scribe  said 
about  the  fewness  of  dramatic  types  —  I  beHeve  we  are 
warranted  in  asserting  that  all  the  stories  of  lovely 
women  held  in  bondage  by  monsters,  and  rescued  by 
heroes  who  perform  wonderful  tasks,  such  as  Don  Quixote 
burned  to  achieve,  are  derived  ultimately  from  solar 
myths,  like  the  .myth  of  Sigurd  and  Brynhild.  I  do  not 
mean  to  say  that  the  story-tellers  who  beguiled  tlieir 
time  in  stringing  together  the  incidents  which  make  up 
these  legends  were  conscious  of  their  solar  character. 
They  did  not  go  to  work,  with  malice  prepense,  to  weave 
allegories  and  apologues.  The  Greeks  who  first  told  the 
story  of  Perseus  and  Andromeda,  the  Arabians  who  de- 
vised the  tale  of  Codadad  and  his  brethren,  the  Flemings 
who  listened  over  their  beer-mugs  to  the  adventures  of 
Culotte-Verte,  were  not  thinking  of  sun-gods  or  dawn- 
maidens,  or  night-demons  ;  and  no  theory  of  mythology 
can  be  sound  which  implies  such  an  extravagance.  Most 
of  these  stories  have  lived  on  the  lips  of  the  common 
people ;  and  illiterate  persons  are  not  in  the  habit  of 
allegorizing  in  the  style  of  mediaeval  monks  or  rabbinical 


134  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

commentators.  But  what  has  been  amply  demonstratec' 
is,  that  the  sun  and  the  clouds,  the  light  and  the  dark- 
ness, were  once  supposed  to  be  actuated  by  wills  analo- 
gous to  the  human  will ;  that  they  were  personified  and 
worshipped  or  propitiated  by  sacrifice  ;  and  that  their 
doings  were  described  in  language  which  applied  so  well 
to  the  deeds  of  human  or  quasi-human  beings  that  in 
course  of  time  its  primitive  purport  faded  from  recollec- 
tion. No  competent  scholar  now  doubts  that  the  myths 
of  the  Veda  and  the  Edda  originated  in  this  way,  for 
philology  itself  shows  that  the  names  employed  in  them 
are  the  names  of  the  great  phenomena  of  nature.  And 
when  once  a  few  striking  stories  had  thus  arisen,  —  when 
once  it  had  been  told  how  Indra  smote  the  Panis,  and 
how  Sigurd  rescued  Brynhild,  and  how  Odysseus  blinded 
the  Kyklops,  —  then  certain  mythic  or  dramatic  types 
had  been  called  into  existence ;  and  to  these  types,  pre- 
served in  the  popular  imagination,  future  stories  would 
inevitably  conform.  We  need,  therefore,  have  no  hesita- 
tion in  admitting  a  common  origin  for  the  vanquished 
Panis  and  the  outwitted  Troll  or  Devil ;  we  may  securely 
compare  the  legends  of  St.  George  and  Jack  the  Giant- 
killer  with  the  myth  of  Indra  slaying  Vritra ;  we  may 
see  in  the  invincible  Sigurd  the  prototype  of  many  a 
doughty  knight-errant  of  romance ;  and  we  may  learn 
anew  the  lesson,  taught  with  fresh  emphasis  by  modern 
scholarship,  that  in  the  deepest  sense  there  is  nothing 
new  under  the  sun. 

I  am  the  more  explicit  on  this  point,  because  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  unguarded  language  of  many  students  of 
mythology  is  liable  to  give  rise  to  misapprehensions,  and 
to  discredit  both  the  method  which  they  employ  and  the 
results  which  they  have  obtained.  If  we  were  to  give 
full  weight  to  the  statements  which  are  sometimes  me^de, 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS. 


we  should  perforce  believe  that  primitive  men  had  noth- 
ing to  do  but  to  ponder  about  the  sun  and  tlie  clouds,  and 
to  worry  themselves  over  the  disappearance  of  daylight. 
But  there  is  nothing  in  the  scientific  interpretation  of 
myths  which  obliges  us  to  go  any  such  length.  I  do  not 
suppose  that  any  ancient  Aryan,  possessed  of  good  di- 
gestive powers  and  endowed  with  sound  common-sense, 
ever  lay  awake  half  the  night  wondering  whether  the 
sun  would  come  back  again.*  The  child  and  the  savage 
believe  of  necessity  that  the  future  will  resemble  the 
past,  and  it  is  only  philosophy  which  raises  doubts  on 
the  subject.-j-  The  predominance  of  solar  legends  in 
most  systems  of  mythology  is  not  due  to  the  lack  of 
"  that  Titanic  assurance  with  wliich  we  say,  the  sun  must 
rise  " ;  X  ^^i'  again  to  the  fact  that  the  phenomena  of  day 
and  night  are  the  most  striking  phenomena  in  nature. 
Eclipses  and  earthquakes  and  floods  are  phenomena  of 
the  most  terrible  and  astounding  kind,  and  they  have 
all  generated  myths ;  yet  their  contributions  to  folk-lore 
are  scanty  compared  with  those  furnished  by  the  strife 
between  the  day -god  and  his  enemies.  The  sun-myths 
have  been  so  prolific  because  the  dramatic  types  to  which 
they  have  given  rise  are  of  surpassing  human  interest. 
The  dragon  who  swallows  the  sun  is  no  doubt  a  fearful 
personage ;  but  the  hero  who  toils  for  others,  who  slays 
hydra-headed  monsters,  and  dries  tlie  tears  of  fair-haired 

*  I  agree,  most  heartily,  with  Mr.  Mahaffy's  remarks,  Prolegomena 
to  Anciei)t  History,  p.  69. 

t  Sir  George  Grey  once  told  some  Australian  natives  about  the  coun- 
tries within  the  arctic  circle  where  during  part  of  the  year  the  sun  never 
sets.  "Their  astonishment  now  knew  no  bounds.  '  Ah  !  that  must  be 
another  sun,  not  the  same  as  the  one  we  see  here,'  said  an  old  man  ;  and 
in  spite  of  all  my  arguments  to  the  contrary,  the  others  adopted  this 
opinion."  Grey's  Journals,  I.  293,  cited  in  Tylor,  Early  History  of 
Mankind,  p.  301. 

t  Max  Miiller,  Chips,  II.  96. 


136 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


damsels,  and  achieves  success  in  spite  of  incredible  obsta- 
cles, is  a  being  with  whom  we  can  all  sympathize,  and  of 
whom  we  never  weary  of  hearing. 

With  many  of  these  legends  which  present  the  myth 
of  light  and  darkness  in  its  most  attractive  form,  the 
reader  is  already  acquainted,  and  it  is  needless  to  retail 
stories  which  have  been  told  over  and  over  again  in  books 
which  every  one  is  presumed  to  have  read.  I  will  con- 
tent myself  with  a  weird  Irish  legend,  narrated  by  Mr. 
Patrick  Kennedy,*  in  which  we  here  and  there  catch 
glimpses  of  the  primitive  mythical  symbols,  as  fragments 
of  gold  are  seen  gleaming  through  the  crystal  of  quartz. 

Long  before  the  Danes  ever  came  to  Ireland,  there  died 
at  Muskerry  a  Sculloge,  or  country  farmer,  who  by  dint 
of  hard  work  and  close  economy  had  amassed  enormous 
wealth.  His  only  son  did  not  resemble  him.  When  the 
young  Sculloge  looked  about  the  house,  the  day  after  his 
father's  death,  and  saw  the  big  chests  full  of  gold  and 
silver,  and  the  cupboards  shining  with  piles  of  sovereigns, 
and  the  old  stockings  stuffed  with  large  and  small  coin, 
he  said  to  himself,  Bedad,  how  shall  I  ever  be  able  to 
spend  the  likes  o'  that ! "  And  so  he  drank,  and  gam- 
bled, and  wasted  his  time  in  hunting  and  horse-racing, 
until  after  a  while  he  found  the  chests  empty  and  the 
cupboards  poverty-stricken,  and  the  stockings  lean  and 
penniless.  Then  he  mortgaged  his  farm-house  and  gam- 
bled away  all  the  money  he  got  for  it,  and  then  he  be- 
thought him  that  a  few  hundred  pounds  might  be  raised 
on  his  mill.  But  when  he  went  to  look  at  it,  he  found 
"  the  dam  broken,  and  scarcely  a  thimbleful  of  water  in 
the  mill-race,  and  the  wheel  rotten,  and  the  thatch  of  the 
house  all  gone,  and  the  upper  millstone  lying  flat  on  the 
lower  one,  and  a  coat  of  dust  and  mould  over  every- 

*  Fictions  of  the  Irish  Celts,  pp.  255  -  270. 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS. 


thing."  So  he  made  up  his  mind  to  borrow  a  horse  and 
take  one  more  hunt  to-morrow  and  then  reform  his  hab- 
its. 

As  he  was  returning  late  in  the  evening  from  this  fare- 
well hunt,  passing  through  a  lonely  glen  he  came  upon 
an  old  man  playing  backgammon,  betting  on  his  left  hand 
against  his  right,  and  crying  and  cursing  because  the 
right  ivould  win.  "  Come  and  bet  with  me,"  said  he  to 
Sculloge.  "  Faith,  I  have  but  a  sixpence  in  the  world," 
was  the  reply  ;  "  but,  if  you  like,  I  '11  wager  that  on  the 
right."  "  Done,"  said  the  old  man,  who  was  a  Druid ; 
"  if  you  win  1 11  give  you  a  hundred  guineas."  So  the 
game  was  played,  and  the  old  man,  whose  right  hand  was 
always  the  winner,  paid  over  the  guineas  and  told  Scul- 
loge to  go  to  the  Devil  with  them. 

Instead  of  following  this  bit  of  advice,  however,  the 
young  farmer  went  home  and  began  to  pay  his  debts,  and 
next  week  he  went  to  the  glen  and  won  another  game, 
and  made  the  Druid  rebuild  his  mill.  So  Sculloge  be- 
came prosperous  again,  and  by  and  by  he  tried  his  luck  a 
third  time,  and  won  a  game  played  for  a  beautiful  wife. 
The  Druid  sent  her  to  his  house  the  next  morning  before 
he  was  out  of  bed,  and  his  servants  came  knocking  at  the 
door  and  crying,  "  Wake  up  !  wake  up  !  Master  Scul- 
loge, there 's  a  young  lady  here  to  see  you."  "  Bedad,  it 's 
the  vanithee  *  herself,"  said  Sculloge  ;  and  getting  up  in 
a  hurry,  he  spent  three  quarters  of  an  hour  in  dressing 
himself  At  last  he  went  down  stairs,  and  there  on  the 
sofa  was  the  prettiest  lady  ever  seen  in  Ireland  !  Natu- 
rally, Sculloge's  heart  beat  fast  and  his  voice  trembled,  as 
he  begged  the  lady's  pardon  for  this  Druidic  style  of 
wooing,  and  besought  her  not  to  feel  obliged  to  stay  with 
him  unless  she  really  liked  him.    But  the  young  lady, 

♦  A  corruption  of  Gaelic  hhan  a  teaigh^  **  lady  of  the  house." 


MYTBS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


who  was  a  king's  daughter  from  a  far  country,  was  won- 
drously  charmed  with  the  handsome  farmer,  and  so  well 
did  they  get  along  that  the  priest  was  sent  for  without 
further  delay,  and  they  were  married  before  sundown. 
Sabina  was  the  vanithee's  name ;  and  she  warned  her 
husband  to  have  no  more  dealings  with  Lassa  Buaicht, 
the  old  man  of  the  glen.  So  for  a  while  all  went  happily, 
and  the  Druidic  bride  was  as  good  as  she  was  beautiful. 
But  by  and  by  ScuUoge  began  to  think  he  was  not  earn- 
ing money  fast  enough.  He  could  not  bear  to  see  his 
wife's  white  hands  soiled  with  work,  and  thought  it 
would  be  a  fine  thing  if  he  could  only  afford  to  keep  a 
few  more  servants,  and  drive  about  with  Sabina  in  an 
elegant  carriage,  and  see  her  clothed  in  silk  and  adorned 
with  jewels. 

"I  will  play  one  more  game  and  set  the  stakes  high," 
said  ScuUoge  to  himself  one  evening,  as  he  sat  pondering 
over  these  things  ;  and  so,  without  consulting  Sabina,  he 
stole  away  to  the  glen,  and  played  a  game  for  ten  thou- 
sand guineas.  But  the  evil  Druid  was  now  ready  to 
pounce  on  his  prey,  and  he  did  not  play  as  of  old.  Scul- 
loge  broke  into  a  cold  sweat  with  agony  and  terror  as  he 
saw  the  left  hand  win  !  Then  the  face  of  Lassa  Buaiclic 
grew  dark  and  stern,  and  he  laid  on  ScuUoge  the  curse 
which  is  laid  upon  the  solar  hero  in  misfortune,  that  he 
should  never  sleep  twice  under  the  same  roof,  or  ascend 
the  couch  of  the  dawn-nymph,  his  wife,  until  he  should 
have  procured  and  brought  to  him  the  sword  of  light. 
When  ScuUoge  reached  home,  more  dead  than  alive,  he 
saw  that  his  wife  knew  all.  Bitterly  they  wept  together, 
but  she  told  him  that  with  courage  all  might  be  set  right. 
She  gave  him  a  Druidic  horse,  which  bore  him  swiftly 
over  land  and  sea,  like  the  enchanted  steed  of  the  Arabian 
Nights,  until  he  reached  the  castle  of  his  wife's  father. 


LIGHT  AND  DARKNESS. 


who,  as  Sculloge  now  learned,  was  a  good  Druid,  the 
brother  of  the  evil  Lassa  Buaicht.  This  good  Druid  told 
him  that  the  sword  of  light  was  kept  by  a  tliird  brother, 
the  powerful  magician,  Fiach  O'Duda,  who  dwelt  in  an 
enchanted  castle,  which  many  brave  heroes  had  tried  to 
enter,  but  the  dark  sorcerer  had  slain  them  all.  Three 
high  walls  surrounded  the  castle,  and  many  had  scaled 
the  first  of  these,  but  none  had  ever  returned  alive.  But 
Sculloge  was  not  to  be  daunted,  and,  taking  from  his 
father-in-law  a  black  steed,  he  set  out  for  the  fortress  of 
Fiach  O'Duda.  Over  the  first  high  wall  nimbly  leaped 
the  magic  horse,  and  Sculloge  called  aloud  on  the  Druid 
to  come  out  and  surrender  his  sword.  Then  came  out  a 
tall,  dark  man,  with  coal-black  eyes  and  hair  and  melan- 
choly visage,  and  made  a  furious  sweep  at  Sculloge  with 
the  flaming  blade.  But  the  Druidic  beast  sprang  back 
over  the  wall  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  and  rescued  his 
rider,  leaving,  however,  his  tail  behind  in  the  court-yard. 
Then  Sculloge  returned  in  triumph  to  his  father-in-law's 
palace,  and  the  night  was  spent  in  feasting  and  revelry. 

Next  day  Sculloge  rode  out  on  a  white  horse,  and  when 
he  got  to  Fiach's  castle,  he  saw  the  first  wall  lying  in 
rubbish.  He  leaped  the  second,  and  the  same  scene 
occurred  as  the  day  before,  save  that  the  horse  escaped 
unharmed. 

The  third  day  Sculloge  went  out  on  foot,  with  a  liarp 
like  that  of  Orpheus  in  his  hand,  and  as  he  swept  its 
strings  the  grass  bent  to  listen  and  the  trees  bowed  their 
heads.  The  castle  walls  all  lay  in  ruins,  and  Sculloge 
made  his  way  unhindered  to  the  upper  room,  where  Fiach 
lay  in  Druidic  slumber,  lulled  by  the  harp.  He  seized 
the  sword  of  light,  which  was  hung  by  the  chimney 
sheathed  in  a  dark  scabbard,  and  making  the  best  of  his 
way  back  to  the  good  king's  palace,  mounted  his  wife's 


140 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


steed,  and  scoured  over  land  and  sea  until  he  found  him- 
self in  the  gloomy  glen  where  Lassa  Buaicht  was  still  cry- 
ing and  cursing  and  betting  on  his  left  hand  against  his 
right. 

"  Here,  treacherous  fiend,  take  your  sword  of  light ! " 
shouted  Sculloge  in  tones  of  thunder ;  and  as  he  drew  it 
from  its  sheath  the  whole  valley  was  lighted  up  as  with 
the  morning  sun,  and  next  moment  the  head  of  the 
wretched  Druid  was  lying  at  his  feet,  and  his  sweet 
wife,  who  had  come  to  meet  him,  was  laughing  and 
crying  in  his  arms. 

NovembeVf  1870. 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD, 


141 


V. 

MYTHS  OF  THE  BAEBARIC  WORLD. 

THE  theory  of  mythology  set  forth  in  the  four  preced- 
ing papers,  and  illustrated  by  the  examination  of 
numerous  myths  relating  to  the  lightning,  the  storm- 
wind,  the  clouds,  and  the  sunlight,  was  originally  framed 
with  reference  solely  to  the  mythic  and  legendary  lore  of 
the  Aryan  world.  The  phonetic  identity  of  the  names 
of  many  Western  gods  and  heroes  with  the  names  of 
those  Vedic  divinities  which  are  obviously  the  personifi- 
cations of  natin^al  phenomena,  suggested  the  theory  which 
philosophical  considerations  had  already  foreshadowed  in 
the  works  of  Hume  and  Comte,  and  which  the  exhaustive 
analysis  of  Greek,  Hindu,  Keltic,  and  Teutonic  legends 
has  amply  confirmed.  Let  us  now,  before  proceeding  to 
the  consideration  of  barbaric  folk-lore,  briefly  recapitulate 
the  results  obtained  by  modern  scholarship  working  strict- 
ly within  the  limits  of  the  Aryan  domain. 

In  the  first  place,  it  has  been  proved  once  for  all  that 
the  languages  spoken  by  the  Hindus,  Persians,  Greeks, 
Romans,  Kelts,  Slaves,  and  Teutons  are  all  descended 
from  a  single  ancestral  language,  the  Old  Aryan,  in  the 
same  sense  that  French,  Italian,  and  Spanish  are  de- 
scended from  the  Latin.  And  from  this  undisputed  fact 
it  is  an  inevitable  inference  that  these  various  races  con- 
tain, along  with  other  elements,  a  race-element  in  com- 
mon, due  to  their  Aryan  pedigree.  That  the  Indo-Euro- 
pean races  are  wholly  Aryan  is  very  improbable,  for  in 
every  case  the  countries  overrun  by  them  were  occupied 


142 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


by  inferior  races,  whose  blood  must  have  mingled  in  vary- 
ing degrees  with  that  of  their  conquerors ;  but  that  every 
Indo-European  people  is  in  great  part  descended  from  a 
common  Aryan  stock  is  not  open  to  question. 

In  the  second  place,  along  with  a  common  fund  of 
moral  and  religious  ideas  and  of  legal  and  ceremonial  ob- 
servances, we  find  these  kindred  peoples  possessed  of  a 
common  fund  of  myths,  superstitions,  proverbs,  popular 
poetry,  and  household  legends.  The  Hindu  mother 
amuses  her  child  with  fairy-tales  which  often  correspond, 
even  in  minor  incidents,  with  stories  in  Scottish  or 
Scandinavian  nurseries  ;  and  she  tells  them  in  words 
which  are  phonetically  akin  to  words  in  Swedish  and 
Gaelic.  No  doubt  many  of  these  stories  might  have 
been  devised  in  a  dozen  different  places  independently 
of  each  other ;  and  no  doubt  many  of  them  have  been 
transmitted  laterally  from  one  people  to  another ;  but  a 
careful  examination  shows  that  such  cannot  have  been 
the  case  with  the  great  majority  of  legends  and  beliefs. 
The  agreement  between  two  such  stories,  for  instance,  as 
those  of  Faithful  John  and  Eama  and  Luxman  is  so  close 
as  to  make  it  incredible  that  they  should  have  been  in- 
dependently fabricated,  while  the  points  of  difference  are 
so  important  as  to  make  it  extremely  improbable  that  the 
one  was  ever  copied  from  the  other.  Besides  which,  the 
essential  identity  of  such  myths  as  those  of  Sigurd  and 
Theseus,  or  of  Helena  and  Sarama,  carries  us  back  histor- 
ically to  a  time  when  the  scattered  Indo-European  tribes 
had  not  yet  begun  to  hold  commercial  and  intellectual 
intercourse  with  each  other,  and  consequently  could  not 
have  interchanged  their  epic  materials  or  their  household 
stories.  We  are  therefore  driven  to  the  conclusion  — 
which,  startling  as  it  may  seem,  is  after  all  the  most 
natural  and  plausible  one  that  can  be  stated  — that  the 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD.  1 43 


Aryan  nations,  which  have  inherited  from  a  common  an- 
cestral stock  their  lang-uages  and  their  customs,  have  in- 
herited also  from  the  same  common  original  their  fireside 
legends.  They  have  preserved  Cinderella  and  Punchkin 
just  as  they  have  preserved  the  words  for  father  and 
mother,  ten  and  twenty;  and  the  former  case,  though 
more  imposing  to  the  imagination,  is  scientifically  no 
less  intelligible  than  the  latter. 

Thirdly,  it  has  been  shown  that  these  venerable  tales 
may  be  grouped  in  a  few  pretty  well  defined  classes ;  and 
that  the  archetypal  myth  of  each  class  —  the  primitive 
story  in  conformity  to  which  countless  subsequent  tales 
have  been  generated  —  was  originally  a  mere  description 
of  physical  plienomena,  couched  in  the  poetic  diction  of 
an  age  when  everything  was  personified,  because  all  nat- 
ural phenomena  were  supposed  to  be  due  to  the  direct 
workings  of  a  volition  like  that  of  which  men  were  con- 
scious within  themselves.  Thus  we  are  led  to  the  strik- 
ing conclusion  that  mythology  has  had  a  common  root, 
both  with  science  and  with  religious  philosophy.  The 
myth  of  Indra  conquering  Vritra  was  one  of  the  theo- 
rems of  primitive  Aryan  science  ;  it  was  a  provisional 
explanation  of  the  thunder-storm,  satisfactory  enough 
until  extended  observation  and  reflection  supplied  a  bet- 
ter one.  It  also  contained  the  germs  of  a  theology  ;  for 
the  life-giving  solar  light  furnished  an  important  part  of 
the  primeval  conception  of  deity.  And  finally,  it  became 
the  fruitful  parent  of  countless  myths,  whether  embod- 
ied in  the  stately  epics  of  Homer  and  the  bards  of  the 
Nibelungenlied,  or  in  the  humbler  legends  of  St.  George 
and  William  Tell  and  tlie  ubiquitous  Boots. 

Such  is  the  theory  wliich  was  suggested  half  a  century 
ago  by  the  researches  of  Jacob  Grimm,  and  which,  so  far 
as  concerns  the  mythology  of  the  Aryan  race,  is  now 


144 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


victorious  along  the  whole  line.  It  remains  for  us  to 
test  the  universality  of  the  general  principles  upon  which 
it  is  founded,  by  a  brief  analysis  of  sundry  legends  and 
superstitions  of  the  barbaric  world.  Since  the  fetichistic 
habit  of  explaining  the  outward  phenomena  of  nature 
after  the  analogy  of  the  inward  phenomena  of  conscious 
intelligence  is  not  a  habit  peculiar  to  our  Aryan  ances- 
tors, but  is,  as  psychology  shows,  the  inevitable  result  of 
the  conditions  under  which  uncivilized  thinking  pro- 
ceeds, we  may  expect  to  find  the  barbaric  mind  personi- 
fying the  powers  of  nature  and  making  myths  about  their 
operations  the  whole  world  over.  And  we  need  not  be 
surprised  if  we  find  in  the  resulting  mythologic  structures 
a  strong  resemblance  to  the  familiar  creations  of  the 
Aryan  intelligence.  In  point  of  fact,  we  shall  often  be 
called  upon  to  note  such  resemblance  ;  and  it  accordingly 
behooves  us  at  the  outset  to  inquire  how  far  a  similarity 
between  mythical  tales  shall  be  taken  as  evidence  of  a 
common  traditional  origin,  and  how  far  it  may  be  inter- 
preted as  due  merely  to  the  similar  workings  of  the  un- 
trained intelligence  in  all  ages  and  countries. 

Analogies  drawn  from  the  comparison  of  languages 
will  here  be  of  service  to  us,  if  used  discreetly ;  other- 
wise they  are  likely  to  bewilder  far  more  than  to  en- 
lighten us.  A  theorem  which  Max  Miiller  has  laid  down 
for  our  guidance  in  this  kind  of  investigation  furnishes 
us  with  an  excellent  example  of  the  tricks  w^hich  a 
superficial  analogy  may  play  even  with  the  trained 
scholar,  when  temporarily  off  his  guard.  Actuated  by  a 
praiseworthy  desire  to  raise  the  study  of  myths  to  some- 
thing like  the  high  level  of  scientific  accuracy  already 
attained  by  the  study  of  words.  Max  Miiller  endeavours 
to  introduce  one  of  the  most  useful  canons  of  philology 
into  a  department  of  inquiry  where  its  introduction 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD. 


could  only  work  the  most  hopeless  confusion.  One  of 
the  earliest  lessons  to  be  learned  by  the  scientific  stu- 
dent of  linguistics  is  the  uselessness  of  comparing  to- 
gether directly  the  words  contained  in  derivative  lan- 
guages. For  example,  you  might  set  the  English  tivelve 
side  by  side  with  the  Latin  duodecim,  and  then  stare  at 
the  two  words  to  all  eternity  without  any  hope  of  reach- 
ing a  conclusion,  good  or  bad,  about  either  of  them  : 
least  of  all  would  you  suspect  that  they  are  descended 
from  the  same  radical.  But  if  you  take  each  word  by 
itself  and  trace  it  back  to  its  primitive  shape,  explaining 
every  change  of  every  letter  as  you  go,  you  will  at  last 
reach  the  old  Aryan  dvadakan,  which  is  the  parent  of 
both  these  strangely  metamorphosed  words.*  Nor  will  it 
do,  on  the  other  hand,  to  trust  to  verbal  similarity  with- 
out a  historical  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  such  similarity. 
Even  in  the  same  language  two  words  of  quite  different 
origin  may  get  their  corners  rubbed  off  till  they  look  as 
like  one  another  as  two  pebbles.  The  French  words  souris, 
a  "mouse,"  and  souris,  a  "smile,"  are  spelled  exactly 
alike ;  but  the  one  comes  from  Latin  sorex  and  the  other 
from  Latin  sid)ridcrc. 

Now  Max  Miiller  tells  us  that  this  principle,  which  is 
indispensable  in  the  study  of  words,  is  equally  indispen- 
sable in  the  study  of  myths.i*  That  is,  you  must  not 
rashly  pronounce  the  Norse  story  of  the  Heartless  Giant 
identical  with  the  Hindu  story  of  Punchkin,  although  the 
two  correspond  in  every  essential  incident.  In  both 
legends  a  magician  turns  several  members  of  the  same 
family  into  stone ;  the  youngest  member  of  the  family 
comes  to  the  rescue,  and  on  the  way  saves  the  lives  of 

*  For  the  analysis  of  twelve,  see  my  essay  on  "  The  Genesis  of  Lan- 
guage," North  American  Review,  Octoher,  1869,  p.  320. 
t  Chips  from  a  German  Workshop,  Vol.  II.  p.  246. 

7  J 


146  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

sundry  grateful  beasts  ;  arrived  at  the  magician's  castle, 
he  finds  a  captive  princess  ready  to  accept  his  love  and 
to  play  the  part  of  Delilah  to  the  enchanter.  In  both 
stories  the  enchanter's  life  depends  on  the  integrity  of 
something  which  is  elaborately  hidden  in  a  far-distant 
island,  but  which  the  fortunate  youth,  instructed  by  the 
artful  princess  and  assisted  by  his  menagerie  of  grateful 
beasts,  succeeds  in  obtaining.  In  both  stories  the  youth 
uses  his  advantage  to  free  all  his  friends  from  their  en- 
chantment, and  then  proceeds  to  destroy  the  villain  who 
wrought  all  this  wickedness.  Yet,  in  spite  of  this  agree- 
ment, Max  M tiller,  if  I  understand  him  aright,  would  not 
have  us  infer  the  identity  of  the  two  stories  until  we  have 
taken  each  one  separately  and  ascertained  its  primitive 
mythical  significance.  Otherwise,  for  aught  we  can  tell, 
the  resemblance  may  be  purely  accidental,  like  that  of 
the  French  words  for  "  mouse  "  and  "  smile." 

A  little  reflection,  how^ever,  wdll  relieve  us  from  this 
perplexity,  and  assure  us  that  the  alleged  analogy  be- 
tween the  comparison  of  words  and  the  comparison  of 
stories  is  utterly  superficial.  The  transformations  of 
words  —  which  are  often  astounding  enough  —  depend 
upon  a  few  well-established  physiological  principles  of 
utterance ;  and  since  philology  has  learned  to  rely  upon 
these  principles,  it  has  become  nearly  as  sure  in  its 
methods  and  results  as  one  of  the  so-called  "  exact 
sciences."  Folly  enough  is  doubtless  committed  within 
its  precincts  by  writers  who  venture  there  without  the 
laborious  preparation  which  this  science,  more  than  al- 
most any  other,  demands.  But  the  proceedings  of  the 
trained  philologist  are  no  more  arbitrary  than  those  of 
the  trained  astronomer.  And  though  the  former  may 
seem  to  be  straining  at  a  gnat  and  swallowing  a  camel 
when  he  coolly  tells  you  that  violin  and  fiddle  are  the 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD.  1 47 

same  word,  while  English  care  and  Latin  cura  have 
nothing  to  do  with  each  other,  he  is  nevertheless  no 
more  indulging  in  guess-work  than  the  astronomer  who 
confesses  his  ignorance  as  to  the  habitability  of  Venus 
while  asserting  his  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  hydro- 
gen in  the  atmosphere  of  Sirius.  To  cite  ore  example 
out  of  a  hundred,  every  philologist  knows  that  5  may 
become  r,  and  that  the  broad  a-sound  may  dwindle  into 
the  closer  o-sound ;  but  when  you  adduce  some  plausible 
etymology  based  on  the  assumption  that  r  has  changed 
into  5,  or  0  into  a,  apart  from  the  demonstiable  influence 
of  some  adjacent  letter,  the  philologist  will  shake  his 
head. 

Now  in  the  study  of  stories  there  are  no  such  simple 
rules  all  cut  and  dried  for  us  to  go  by.  There  is  no  uni- 
form psychological  principle  which  determines  that  the 
three-headed  snake  in  one  story  shall  become  a  three- 
headed  man  in  the  next.  There  is  no  Grimm's  Law  in 
mythology  which  decides  that  a  Hindu  magician  shall 
always  correspond  to  a  Norwegian  Troll  or  a  Keltic 
Druid.  The  laws  of  association  of  ideas  are  not  so 
simple  in  application  as  the  laws  of  utterance.  In  short, 
the  study  of  myths,  though  it  can  be  made  sufficiently 
scientific  in  its  methods  and  results,  does  not  constitute 
a  science  by  itself,  like  philology.  It  stands  on  a  footing 
similar  to  that  occupied  by  physical  geography,  or  what 
the  Germans  call  "  earth-knowledge."  No  one  denies  that 
all  the  changes  going  on  over  the  earth's  surface  conform 
to  physical  laws  ;  but  then  no  one  pretends  that  tliere  is 
any  single  proximate  principle  which  governs  all  tlie 
phenomena  of  rain-fall,  of  soil-crumbling,  of  magnetic 
variation,  and  of  the  distribution  of  plants  and  animals. 
All  these  things  are  explained  by  principles  obtained  from 
the  various  sciences  of  physics,  chemistry,  geology,  and 


148 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


physiology.  And  in  just  the  same  way  the  development 
and  distribution  of  stories  is  explained  by  the  help  of 
divers  resources  contributed  by  philology,  psychology, 
and  history.  There  is  therefore  no  real  analogy  between 
the  cases  cited  by  Max  MuUer.  Two  unrelated  words 
may  be  ground  into  exactly  the  same  shape,  just  as  a 
pebble  from  the  North  Sea  may  be  undistinguishable 
from  another  pebble  on  the  beach  of  the  Adriatic ;  but 
two  stories  like  those  of  Punchkin  and  the  Heartless 
Giant  are  no  more  likely  to  arise  independently  of  each 
other  than  two  coral  reefs  on  opposite  sides  of  the  globe 
are  likely  to  develop  into  exactly  similar  islands. 

Shall  we  then  say  boldly,  that  close  similarity  between 
legends  is  proof  of  kinship,  and  go  our  way  without  fur- 
ther misgivings  ?  Unfortunately  we  cannot  dispose  of 
the  matter  in  quite  so  summary  a  fashion ;  for  it  remains 
to  decide  what  kind  and  degree  of  similarity  shall  be  con- 
sidered satisfactory  evidence  of  kinship.  And  it  is  just 
here  that  doctors  may  disagree.  Here  is  the  point  at 
which  our  "  science  "  betrays  its  weakness  as  compared 
with  the  sister  study  of  philology.  Before  we  can  de- 
cide with  confidence  in  any  case,  a  great  mass  of  evi- 
dence must  be  brought  into  court.  So  long  as  we  re- 
mained on  Aryan  ground,  all  went  smoothly  enough, 
because  all  the  external  evidence  was  in  our  favour.  We 
knew  at  the  outset,  that  the  Aryans  inherit  a  common 
language  and  a  common  civilization,  and  therefore  we 
found  no  difficulty  in  accepting  the  conclusion  that  they 
have  inherited,  among  other  things,  a  common  stock  of 
legends.  In  the  barbaric  world  it  is  quite  otherwise. 
Philology  does  not  pronounce  in  favour  of  a  common 
origin  for  all  barbaric  culture,  such  as  it  is.  The  notion 
of  a  single  primitive  language,  standing  in  the  same  rela- 
tion to  all  existing  dialects  as  the  relation  of  old  Aryan 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD.  149 

to  Latin  and  English,  or  that  of  old  Semitic  to  Hebrew 
and  Arabic,  was  a  notion  suited  only  to  the  infancy  of 
linguistic  science.  As  the  case  now  stands,  it  is  certain 
that  all  the  languages  actually  existing  cannot  be  referred 
to  a  common  ancestor,  and  it  is  altogether  probable  that 
there  never  was  any  such  common  ancestor.  I  am  not 
now  referring  to  the  question  of  the  unity  of  the  human 
race.  That  question  lies  entirely  outside  the  sphere  of 
philology.  The  science  of  language  has  nothing  to  do 
with  skuUs  or  complexions,  and  no  comparison  of  words 
can  tell  us  whether  the  black  men  are  brethren  of  the 
white  men,  or  whether  yeUow  and  red  men  have  a  com- 
mon pedigree :  these  questions  belong  to  comparative 
physiology.  But  the  science  of  language  can  and  does 
tell  us  that  a  certain  amount  of  civilization  is  requisite 
for  the  production  of  a  language  sufficiently  durable  and 
wide-spread  to  give  birth  to  numerous  mutually  resem- 
bling offspring.  Barbaric  languages  are  neither  wide- 
spread nor  durable.  Among  savages  each  little  gi'oup  of 
families  has  its  own  dialect,  and  coins  its  own  expressions 
at  pleasure  ;  and  in  the  course  of  two  or  three  gener- 
ations a  dialect  gets  so  strangely  altered  as  virtually  to 
lose  its  identity.  Even  numerals  and  personal  pronouns, 
which  the  Aryan  has  preserved  for  fifty  centuries,  get 
lost  every  few  years  in  Polynesia.  Since  the  time  of 
Captain  Cook  the  Tahitian  language  has  thrown  away 
five  out  of  its  ten  simple  numerals,  and  replaced  them 
by  brand-new  ones  ;  and  on  the  Amazon  you  may  acquire 
a  fluent  command  of  some  Indian  dialect,  and  then,  com- 
ing back  after  twenty  years,  find  yourself  worse  off  than 
Eip  Van  Winkle,  and  your  learning  all  antiquated  and 
useless.  How  absurd,  therefore,  to  suppose  that  primeval 
savages  originated  a  language  which  has  held  its  own 
like  the  old  Aryan,  and  become  the  prolific  mother  of  the 


Mrrm-  Aim  UYm-MAKEm 


three  or  four  thousand  dialects  now  in  existence  !  Before 
a  durable  language  can  arise,  there  must  be  an  aggrega- 
tion of  numerous  tribes  into  a  people,  so  that  there  may 
be  need  of  communication  on  a  large  scale,  and  so  that 
tradition  may  be  strengthened.  Wherever  mankind  have 
associated  in  nations,  permanent  languages  have  arisen, 
and  their  derivative  dialects  bear  the  conspicuous  marks 
of  kinship ;  but  where  mankind  have  remained  in  their 
primitive  savage  isolation,  their  languages  have  remained 
sporadic  and  transitory,  incapable  of  organic  develop- 
ment, and  showing  no  traces  of  a  kinship  which  never 
existed. 

The  bearing  of  these  considerations  upon  the  origin 
and  diffusion  of  barbaric  myths  is  obvious.  The  devel- 
opment of  a  common  stock  of  legends  is,  of  course,  im- 
possible, save  where  there  is  a  common  language;  and 
thus  philology  pronounces  against  the  kinship  of  bar- 
baric myths  with  each  other  and  with  similar  myths  of 
the  Aryan  and  Semitic  worlds.  Similar  stories  told  in 
Greece  and  Norway  are  likely  to  have  a  common  pedi- 
gree, because  the  persons  who  have  preserved  them  in 
recollection  speak  a  common  language  and  have  inherited 
the  same  civilization.  But  similar  stories  told  in  Lab- 
rador and  South  Africa  are  not  likely  to  be  genealogi- 
cally related,  because  it  is  altogether  probable  that  the 
Esquimaux  and  the  Zulu  had  acquired  their  present  race 
characteristics  before  either  of  them  possessed  a  language 
or  a  culture  sufficient  for  the  production  of  myths.  Ac- 
cording to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  similarity,  it 
must  be  decided  whether  such  stories  have  been  carried 
about  from  one  part  of  the  world  to  another,  or  have 
been  independently  originated  in  many  different  places. 

Here  the  methods  of  philology  suggest  a  rule  which 
will  often  be  found  useful.    In  comparing  the  vocabula- 


MYTBS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD.  1 5  I 


lies  of  different  languages,  those  words  which  directly 
imitate  natural  sounds  —  such  as  loliiz,  crash,  craddc  — 
are  not  admitted  as  evidence  of  kinship  between  the 
languages  in  which  they  occur.  Resemblances  between 
such  words  are  obviously  no  proof  of  a  common  ancestry ; 
and  they  are  often  met  with  in  languages  which  have 
demonstrably  had  no  connection  with  each  other.  So  in 
mythology,  where  we  find  two  stories  of  which  the  primi- 
tive cliaracter  is  perfectly  transparent,  we  need  have  no 
difficulty  in  supposing  them  to  have  originated  inde- 
pendently. The  mytli  of  Jack  and  his  Beanstalk  is 
found  all  over  the  world  ;  but  the  idea  of  a  country 
above  the  sky,  to  which  persons  might  gain  access  by 
climbing,  is  one  which  could  hardly  fail  to  occur  to  every 
barbarian.  Among  the  American  tribes,  as  well  as 
among  the  Aryans,  the  rainbow  and  the  Milky- Way 
have  contributed  the  idea  of  a  Bridge  of  the  Dead,  over 
which  souls  must  pass  on  the  way  to  the  other  world. 
In  South  Africa,  as  well  as  in  Germany,  the  habits  of  the 
fox  and  of  his  brother  the  jackal  have  given  rise  to  fables 
in  which  brute  force  is  overcome  by  cunning.  In  many 
parts  of  the  world  we  find  curiously  similar  stories  de- 
vised to  account  for  the  stumpy  tails  of  the  bear  and 
hyaena,  the  hairless  tail  of  the  rat,  and  the  blindness  of 
the  mole.  And  in  all  countries  may  be  found  the  be- 
liefs that  men  may  be  changed  into  beasts,  or  plants,  or 
stones ;  that  the  sun  is  in  some  way  tethered  or  con- 
strained to  follow  a  certain  course  ;  that  the  storm-cloud 
is  a  ravenous  dragon ;  and  that  there  are  talismans  which 
will  reveal  hidden  treasures.  All  these  conceptions  are 
so  obvious  to  the  uncivilized  intelligence,  that  storie.s 
founded  upon  them  need  not  be  supposed  to  have  a  com- 
mon origin,  unless  there  turns  out  to  be  a  striking  simi- 
larity among  their  minor  details.    On  the  other  hand, 


152 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


the  numerous  myths  of  an  all-destroying  deluge  have 
doubtless  arisen  partly  from  reminiscences  of  actually 
occurring  local  inundations,  and  partly  from  the  fact 
that  the  Scriptural  account  of  a  deluge  has  been  carried 
all  over  the  world  by  Catholic  and  Protestant  mission- 
aries.* 

By  way  of  illustrating  these  principles,  let  us  now  cite 
a  few  of  the  American  myths  so  carefully  collected  by 
Dr.  Brinton  in  his  admirable  treatise.  We  shall  not  find 
in  the  mythology  of  the  New  World  the  wealth  of  wit 
and  imagination  which  has  so  long  delighted  us  in  the 
stories  of  Herakles,  Perseus,  Hermes,  Sigurd,  and  Indra. 
The  mythic  lore  of  the  American  Indians  is  compara- 
tively scanty  and  prosaic,  as  befits  the  product  of  a  lower 
grade  of  culture  and  a  more  meagre  intellect.  Not  only 
are  the  personages  less  characteristically  pourtrayed,  but 
there  is  a  continual  tendency  to  extravagance,  the  sure 
index  of  an  inferior  imagination.  Nevertheless,  after 
making  due  allowances  for  differences  in  the  artistic 
method  of  treatment,  there  is  between  the  mythologies 
of  the  Old  and  the  New  Worlds  a  fundamental  resem- 
blance. We  come  upon  solar  myths  and  myths  of  the 
storm  curiously  blended  with  culture-myths,  as  in  the 
cases  of  Hermes,  Prometheus,  and  Kadmos.  The  Amer- 
ican parallels  to  these  are  to  be  found  in  the  stories  of 
Michabo,  Viracocha,  loskeha,  and  Quetzalcoatl.  "As 
elsewhere  the  world  over,  so  in  America,  many  tribes  had 
to  tell  of  ....  an  august  character,  who  taught  them 
what  they  knew,  —  the  tillage  of  the  soil,  the  properties 
of  plants,  the  art  of  picture-writing,  the  secrets  of  magic ; 
who  founded  their  institutions  and  established  their  re- 
ligions ;  who  governed  them  long  with  glory  abroad  and 

*  For  various  legends  of  a  deluge,  see  Baring-Gould,  Legends  of  the 
Patriarclis  and  Prophets,  pp.  85  - 106. 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD. 


peace  at  home ;  and  finally  did  not  die,  but,  like  Frederic 
Barbarossa,  Charlemagne,  King  Arthur,  and  all  great 
heroes,  vanished  mysteriously,  and  still  lives  somewhere, 
ready  at  the  right  moment  to  return  to  his  beloved  peo- 
ple and  lead  them  to  victory  and  happiness."  *  Every 
one  is  familiar  with  the  numerous  legends  of  white- 
skinned,  full-bearded  heroes,  like  the  mild  Quetzalcoatl, 
who  in  times  long  previous  to  Columbus  came  from  the  far 
East  to  impart  the  rudiments  of  civilization  and  religion 
to  the  red  men.  By  those  who  first  heard  these  stories 
they  v/ere  supposed,  with  naive  Euhemerism,  to  refer  to 
pre-Columbian  visits  of  Europeans  to  this  continent,  like 
that  of  the  Northmen  in  the  tenth  century.  But  a  sci- 
entific study  of  the  subject  has  dissipated  such  notions. 
These  legends  are  far  too  numerous,  they  are  too  similar 
to  each  other,  they  are  too  manifestly  symbolical,  to  admit 
of  any  such  interpretation.  By  compariiig  them  care- 
fully with  each  other,  and  with  correlative  myths  of  the 
Old  World,  their  true  character  soon  becomes  apparent. 

One  of  the  most  widely  famous  of  these  culture-heroes 
was  Manabozho  or  Michabo,  the  Great  Hare.  With  en- 
tire unanimity,  says  Dr.  Brinton,  the  various  branches 
of  the  Algonquin  race,  "  the  Powhatans  of  Virginia,  the 
Lenni  Lenape  of  the  Delaware,  the  warlike  hordes  of 
New  England,  the  Ottawas  of  the  far  North,  and  the 
Western  tribes,  perhaps  without  exception,  spoke  of 
'this  chimerical  beast,'  as  one  of  the  old  missionaries 
calls  it,  as  their  common  ancestor.  The  totem,  or  clan, 
which  bore  his  name  was  looked  up  to  with  peculiar 
respect."  Not  only  was  Michabo  the  ruler  and  guardian 
of  these  numerous  tribes,  —  he  was  the  founder  of  their 
religious  rites,  the  inventor  of  picture-writing,  the  ruler 
of  the  weather,  the  creator  and  preserver  of  earth  and 

•  B^mto^,  Myths  9!  the  New  World,  p.  160. 
7* 


154 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


heaven.  "  From  a  grain  of  sand  brought  from  the  bot- 
tom of  the  primeval  ocean  lie  fashioned  the  habitable 
land,  and  set  it  floating  on  the  waters  till  it  grew  to  such 
a  size  that  a  strong  young  wolf,  running  constantly,  died 
of  old  age  ere  he  reached  its  limits."  He  was  also,  like 
Nimrod,  a  mighty  hunter.  "  One  of  his  footsteps  meas- 
ured eight  leagues,  the  Great  Lakes  were  the  beaver-dams 
he  built,  and  when  the  cataracts  impeded  his  progi-ess  he 
tore  them  away  with  his  hands."  "  Sometimes  he  was 
said  to  dwell  in  the  skies  with  his  brother,  the  Snow,  or, 
like  many  great  spirits,  to  have  built  his  wigwam  in  the 

far  North  on  some  floe  of  ice  in  the  Arctic  Ocean  

But  in  the  oldest  accounts  of  the  missionaiies  he  was 
alleged  to  reside  toward  the  East ;  and  in  the  holy  for- 
mulae of  the  meda  craft,  when  the  winds  are  invoked  to 
the  medicine  lodge,  the  East  is  summoned  in  his  name, 
the  door  opens  in  that  direction,  and  there,  at  the  edge 
of  the  earth  where  the  sun  rises,  on  the  shore  of  the  infi- 
nite ocean  that  surrounds  the  land,  he  has  his  house,  and 
sends  the  luminaries  forth  on  their  daily  journeys."  * 
From  such  accounts  as  this  we  see  that  Michabo  was  no 
more  a  wise  instructor  and  legislator  than  Minos  or  Kad- 
mos.  Like  these  heroes,  he  is  a  personification  of  the 
solar  life-giving  power,  which  daily  comes  forth  from  its 
home  in  the  east,  making  the  earth  to  rejoice.  The  ety- 
mology of  his  name  confirms  the  otherwise  clear  indica- 
tions of  the  legend  itself.  It  is  compounded  of  michi, 
"  great,"  and  wabos,  which  means  alike  "  hare "  and 
"  white."  "  Dialectic  forms  in  Algonquin  for  white  are 
wahi,  wa'pe,  wampi,  etc. ;  for  morning,  wapan,  wapanch, 
opah;  for  east,  wapa,  wanhun,  etc.;  for  day,  wom'pan, 
oppan ;  for  light,  oppung"  So  that  Michabo  is  the 
Great  Wliite  One,  the  God  of  the  Dawn  and  the  East 


*  BrintoD,  op.  cit.  p.  163, 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD. 


And  the  etymological  confusion,  by  virtue  of  which  he 
acquired  his  soubriquet  of  the  Great  Hare,  affords  a 
curious  parallel  to  what  has  often  happened  in  Aryan 
and  Semitic  mythology,  as  we  saw  when  discussing  the 
subject  of  werewolves. 

Keeping  in  mind  this  solar  character  of  Michabo,  let 
us  note  how  full  of  meaning  are  the  myths  concerning 
him.  In  the  first  cycle  of  these  legends,  "  he  is  grandson 
of  the  Moon,  his  father  is  the  West  Wind,  and  his  mother, 
a  maiden,  dies  in  giving  him  birth  at  the  moment  of  con- 
ception. For  the  Moon  is  the  goddess  of  niglit ;  the 
Dawn  is  her  daughter,  who  brings  forth  the  Morning, 
and  perishes  herself  in  the  act ;  and  the  West,  the  spirit 
of  darkness,  as  the  East  is  of  light,  precedes,  and  as  it 
were  begets  the  latter,  as  the  evening  does  the  morning. 
Straightway,  however,  continues  the  legend,  the  son 
sought  the  unnatural  father  to  revenge  the  death  of 
his  mother,  and  then  commenced  a  long  and  desperate 
struggle.  It  began  on  the  mountains.  The  West  was 
forced  to  give  ground.  Manabozho  drove  him  across 
rivers  and  over  mountains  and  lakes,  and  at  last  he  came 
to  the  brink  of  this  world.  *  Hold,'  cried  he,  *  my  son, 
you  know  my  power,  and  that  it  is  impossible  to  kill  me.' 
What  is  this  but  the  diurnal  combat  of  light  and  dark- 
ness, carried  on  from  what  time  '  the  jocund  morn  stands 
tiptoe  on  the  misty  mountain-tops,'  across  the  wide  world 
to  the  sunset,  the  struggle  that  knows  no  end,  for  both 
the  opponents  are  immortal  ? "  * 

Even  the  Veda  nowhere  affords  a  more  transparent 
narrative  than  this.  The  Iroquois  tradition  is  very  simi- 
lar.   In  it  appear  twin  brothers,f  born  of  a  virgin  mother, 

*  Brinton,  op.  cit.  p.  167. 

t  Corresponding,  in  various  degrees,  to  the  Asvins,  the  Dioskouroi, 
and  the  brothers  True  and  Untrue  of  Norse  mythology. 


156 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


daughter  of  the  Moon,  who  died  in  giving  them  life.  Their 
names,  loskeha  and  Tawiskara,  signify  in  the  Oneida  dia- 
lect the  White  One  and  the  Dark  One.  Under  the  influ- 
ence of  Christian  ideas  the  contest  between  the  brothers 
has  been  made  to  assume  a  moral  character,  like  the 
strife  between  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman.  But  no  such  in- 
tention appears  in  the  original  myth,  and  Dr.  Brinton 
has  shown  that  none  of  the  American  tribes  had  any  con- 
ception of  a  Devil.  When  the  quarrel  came  to  blows, 
the  dark  brother  was  signally  discomfited ;  and  the  vic- 
torious loskeha,  returning  to  his  grandmother,  "  estab- 
lished his  lodge  in  the  far  East,  on  the  borders  of  the 
Great  Ocean,  whence  the  sun  comes.  In  time  he  became 
the  father  of  mankind,  and  special  guardian  of  the  Iro- 
quois." He  caused  the  earth  to  bring  forth,  he  stocked 
the  woods  with  game,  and  taught  his  children  the  use  of 
fire.  "  He  it  was  who  watched  and  watered  their  crops  ; 
*  and,  indeed,  without  his  aid,'  says  the  old  missionary, 
quite  out  of  patience  with  their  puerilities,  '  they  think 
they  could  not  boil  a  pot.'  "  There  was  more  in  it  than 
poor  Brebeuf  thought,  as  we  are  forcibly  reminded  by 
recent  discoveries  in  physical  science.  Even  civilized 
men  would  find  it  difficult  to  boil  a  pot  without  the  aid 
of  solar  energy.  Call  him  what  we  will,  —  loskeha, 
Michabo,  or  Phoibos,  —  the  beneficent  Sun  is  the  master 
and  sustainer  of  us  all ;  and  if  we  were  to  relapse  into 
heathenism,  like  Erckmann-Chatrian's  innkeeper,  we  could 
not  do  better  than  to  select  him  as  our  chief  object  of 
worship. 

The  same  principles  by  which  these  simple  cases  are 
explained  furnish  also  the  key  to  the  more  complicated 
mythology  of  Mexico  and  Peru.  Like  the  deities  just 
discussed,  Viracocha,  the  supreme  god  of  the  Quichuas, 
rises  from  the  bosom  of  Lake  Titicaca  and  journeys  westr 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD.  1 57 

ward,  slaying  with  his  lightnings  the  creatures  who  op- 
pose him,  until  he  finally  disappears  in  the  Western 
Ocean.  Like  Aphrodite,  he  bears  in  his  name  the  evi- 
dence of  his  origin,  Viracocha  signifying  "  foam  of  the 
sea "  ;  and  hence  the  "  White  One  "  {Va/ahe),  the  god  of 
light  rising  white  on  the  horizon,  like  the  foam  on  the 
surface  of  the  waves.  The  Aymaras  spoke  of  their  origi- 
nal ancestors  as  white ;  and  to  this  day,  as  Dr.  Brinton 
informs  us,  the  Peruvians  call  a  white  man  Viracocha. 
The  myth  of  Quetzalcoatl  is  of  precisely  the  same  charac- 
ter. All  these  solar  heroes  present  in  most  of  their  quali- 
ties and  achievements  a  striking  likeness  to  those  of  the 
Old  World.  They  combine  the  attributes  of  Apollo, 
Herakles,  and  Hermes.  Like  Herakles,  they  journey 
from  east  to  west,  smiting  the  powers  of  darkness,  storm, 
and  winter  with  the  thunderbolts  of  Zeus  or  the  unerring 
arrows  of  Phoibos,  and  sinking  in  a  blaze  of  glory  on 
the  western  verge  of  the  world,  where  the  waves  meet 
the  firmament.  Or  like  Hermes,  in  a  second  cycle  of 
legends,  they  rise  with  the  soft  breezes  of  a  summer  morn- 
ing, driving  before  them  the  bright  celestial  cattle  whose 
udders  are  heavy  with  refreshing  rain,  fanning  the  flames 
which  devour  the  forests,  blustering  at  the  doors  of  wig- 
wams, and  escaping  with  weird  laughter  through  vents 
and  crevices.  The  white  skins  and  flowing  beards  of 
these  American  heroes  may  be  aptly  compared  to  the  fair 
faces  and  long  golden  locks  of  their  Hellenic  compeers. 
Yellow  hair  was  in  all  probability  as  rare  in  Greece  as  a 
full  beard  in  Peru  or  Mexico ;  but  in  each  case  the  de- 
scription suits  the  solar  character  of  the  hero.  One 
important  class  of  incidents,  however  is  apparently  quite 
absent  from  the  American  legends.  We  frequently  see 
the  Dawn  described  as  a  virgin  mother  who  dies  in  giv- 
ing birth  to  the  Day  ;  but  nowhere  do  we  remember  see- 


158 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


ing  her  pictured  as  a  lovely  or  valiant  or  crafty  maiden, 
ardently  wooed,  but  speedily  forsaken  by  her  solar  lover. 
Perhaps  in  no  respect  is  the  superior  richness  and  beauty 
of  the  Aryan  myths  more  manifest  than  in  this.  Bryn- 
hild,  Urvasi,  Medeia,  Ariadne,  Oinone,  and  countless  other 
kindred  heroines,  with  their  brilliant  legends,  could  not 
be  spared  from  the  mythology  of  our  ancestors  without 
leaving  it  meagre  indeed.  These  were  the  materials 
which  Kalidasa,  the  Attic  dramatists,  and  the  bards  of 
the  Mbelungen  found  ready,  awaiting  their  artistic  treat- 
ment. But  the  mythology  of  the  New  World,  with  all 
its  pretty  and  agreeable  naivete,  affords  hardly  enough, 
either  of  variety  in  situation  or  of  complexity  in  motive, 
for  a  grand  epic  or  a  genuine  tragedy. 

But  little  reflection  is  needed  to  assure  us  that  the 
imagination  of  the  barbarian,  who  either  carries  away  his 
wife  by  brute  force  or  buys  her  from  her  relatives  as  he 
would  buy  a  cow,  could  never  have  originated  legends  in 
which  maidens  are  lovingly  solicited,  or  in  which  their 
favour  is  won  by  the  performance  of  deeds  of  valour. 
These  stories  owe  their  existence  to  the  romantic  turn  of 
mind  which  has  always  characterized  the  Aryan,  whose 
civilization,  even  in  the  times  before  the  dispersion  of  his 
race,  was  sufficiently  advanced  to  allow  of  his  entertain- 
ing such  comparatively  exalted  conceptions  of  the  rela- 
tions between  men  and  women.  The  absence  of  these 
myths  from  barbaric  folk-lore  is,  therefore,  just  what 
might  be  expected ;  but  it  is  a  fact  which  militates 
against  any  possible  hypothesis  of  the  common  origin 
of  Aryan  and  barbaric  mythology.  If  there  were  any 
genetic  relationship  between  Sigurd  and  loskeha,  be- 
tween Herakles  and  Michabo,  it  would  be  hard  to  tell 
why  Brynhild  and  lole  should  have  disappeared  entirely 
from  one  whole  group  of  legends,  while  retained,  in  some 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD. 


form  or  other,  throughout  the  whole  of  the  other  group. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  resemblances  above  noticed  be- 
tween Aryan  and  American  mythology  fall  very  far  short 
of  the  resemblances  between  the  stories  told  in  different 
parts  of  the  Aryan  domain.  No  barbaric  legend,  of  genu- 
ine barbaric  growth,  has  yet  been  cited  which  resembles 
any  Aryan  legend  as  the  story  of  Punchkin  resembles  the 
story  of  the  Heartless  Giant.  The  myths  of  Michabo  and 
Viracocha  are  direct  copies,  so  to  speak,  of  natural  phe- 
nomena, just  as  imitative  words  are  direct  copies  of  natu- 
ral sounds.  Neither  t-he  Redskin  nor  the  Indo-European 
had  any  choice  as  to  t))*3  main  features  of  the  career  of 
his  solar  divinity.  He  juust  be  born  of  the  Night,  —  or 
of  the  Dawn,  —  must  tr^a  vel  westward,  must  slay  harass- 
ing demons.  Eliminatipg  these  points  of  likeness,  the 
resemblance  between  the  Aryan  and  barbaric  legends  is 
at  once  at  an  end.  Such  an  identity  in  point  of  details 
as  that  between  the  wooden  horse  which  enters  Hion,  and 
the  horse  which  bears  Sigurd  into  the  place  where  Bryn- 
hild  is  imprisoned,  and  the  Druidic  steed  which  leaps 
with  Sculloge  over  the  walls  of  Fiach's  enchanted  castle, 
is,  I  believe,  nowhere  to  be  found  after  we  leave  Indo- 
European  territory. 

Our  conclusion,  therefore,  must  be,  that  while  the 
legends  of  the  Aryan  and  the  non- Aryan  worlds  contain 
common  mythical  elements,  the  legends  themselves  are 
not  of  common  origin.  The  fact  that  certain  mythical 
ideas  are  possessed  alike  by  different  races,  shows  that  in 
each  case  a  similar  human  intelligence  has  been  at  work 
explaining  similar  phenomena ;  but  in  order  to  prove  a 
family  relationship  between  the  culture  of  these  differ- 
ent races,  we  need  something  more  than  this.  We  need 
to  prove  not  only  a  community  of  mythical  ideas,  but 
also  a  community  between  the  storips  based  upon  these 


l6o  MYTHS  AND  MYTU-MAKEMS. 

ideas.  We  must  show  not  only  that  Michabo  is  like 
Herakles  in  those  striking  features  which  the  contempla- 
tion of  solar  phenomena  would  necessarily  suggest  to  the 
imagination  of  the  primitive  myth-maker,  but  also  that 
the  two  characters  are  similarly  conceived,  and  that  the 
two  careers  agree  in  seemingly  arbitrary  points  of  detail, 
as  is  the  case  in  the  stories  of  Punchkin  and  the  Heart- 
less Giant.  The  mere  fact  that  solar  heroes,  all  over  the 
world,  travel  in  a  certain  path  and  slay  imps  of  darkness 
is  of  great  value  as  throwing  light  upon  primeval  habits 
of  thought,  but  it  is  of  no  value  as  evidence  for  or  against 
an  alleged  community  of  civilization  between  different 
races.  The  same  is  true  of  the  sacredness  universally 
attached  to  certain  numbers.  Dr.  Brinton's  opinion  that 
the  sanctity  of  the  number  four  in  nearly  all  systems  of 
mythology  is  due  to  a  primitive  worsliip  of  the  cardinal 
points,  becomes  very  probable  when  we  recollect  that  the 
similar  pre-eminence  of  seven  is  almost  demonstrably  con- 
nected with  the  adoration  of  the  sun,  moon,  and  five  vis- 
ible planets,  which  has  left  its  record  in  the  structure  and 
nomenclature  of  the  Aryan  and  Semitic  week.* 

In  view  of  these  considerations,  the  comparison  of  bar- 
baric myths  with  each  other  and  with  the  legends  of  the 
Aryan  world  becomes  doubly  interesting,  as  illustrating 
the  similarity  in  the  workings  of  the  untrained  intelli- 
gence the  world  over.  In  our  first  paper  we  saw  how  the 
moon-spots  have  been  variously  explained  by  Indo-Euro- 
peans,  as  a  man  with  a  thorn-bush  or  as  two  children 
bearing  a  bucket  of  water  on  a  pole.    In  Ceylon  it  is 

*  See  Humboldt's  Kosmos,  Tom.  III.  pp.  469-  476.  A  fetichistic 
regard  for  the  cardinal  points  has  not  always  been  absent  from  the  minds 
of  persons  instructed  in  a  higher  theology  ;  as  witness  a  well-known 
passage  in  Irenaeus,  and  also  the  custom,  well-nigh  universal  in  Europe, 
of  building  Christian  churches  in  a  line  east  and  u  ost. 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD.  l6l 

said  that  as  Sakyamuni  was  one  day  wandering  half 
starved  in  the  forest,  a  pious  hare  met  him,  and  offered 
itself  to  him  to  be  slain  and  cooked  for  dinner ;  where- 
upon the  holy  Buddha  set  it  on  high  in  the  moon,  that 
future  generations  of  men  might  see  it  and  marvel  at  its 
piety.  In  the  Samoan  Islands  these  dark  patches  are 
supposed  to  be  portions  of  a  woman's  figure.  A  certain 
woman  was  once  hammering  something  with  a  mallet, 
when  the  moon  arose,  looking  so  much  like  a  bread-fruit 
that  the  woman  asked  it  to  come  down  and  let  her  child 
eat  off  a  piece  of  it ;  but  the  moon,  enraged  at  the  insult, 
gobbled  up  woman,  mallet,  and  child,  and  there,  in  the 
moon's  belly,  you  may  still  behold  them.  According  to 
the  Hottentots,  the  Moon  once  sent  the  Hare  to  inform 
men  that  as  she  died  away  and  rose  again,  so  shouJd  men 
die  and  again  come  to  life.  But  the  stupid  Hare  forgot 
che  purport  of  the  message,  and,  coming  down  to  tlie  earth, 
proclaimed  it  far  and  wide  that  though  the  Moon  was  in- 
variably resuscitated  whenever  she  died,  mankind,  on  the 
other  hand,  should  die  and  go  to  the  Devil.  Wlien  the 
silly  brute  returned  to  the  lunar  country  and  told  what 
he  had  done,  the  Moon  was  so  angry  that  she  took  up  an 
axe  and  aimed  a  blow  at  his  head  to  split  it.  But  the 
axe  missed  and  only  cut  his  lip  open  ;  and  that  was  the 
origin  of  the  "  hare-lip."  Maddened  by  the  pain  and  the 
insult,  the  Hare  flew  at  the  Moon  and  almost  scratched 
her  eyes  out ;  and  to  this  day  she  bears  on  her  face  the 
marks  of  the  Hare's  claws.* 

Again,  every  reader  of  the  classics  knows  how  Selene 
cast  Endymion  into  a  profound  slumber  because  he  re- 
fused her  love,  and  how  at  sundown  she  used  to  come 

*  Bleek,  Hottentot  Fables  and  Tales,  p.  72.  Compare  the  Fiji  story 
of  Ra  Vula,  the  Moon,  and  Ra  Kalavo,  the  Rat,  in  Tylor,  Primitiva 
Culture,  I.  321. 

X 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


and  stand  above  him  on  the  Latmian  hill,  and  watch  him 
as  he  lay  asleep  on  the  marble  steps  of  a  temple  half 
hidden  among  drooping  elm-trees,  over  which  clambered 
vines  heavy  with  dark  blue  grapes.  This  represents  the 
rising  moon  looking  down  on  the  setting  sun ;  in  Labra- 
dor a  similar  phenomenon  has  suggested  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent story.  Among  the  Esquimaux  the  Sun  is  a  maiden 
and  the  Moon  is  her  brother,  who  is  overcome  by  a  wick- 
ed passion  for  her.  Once,  as  this  girl  was  at  a  dancing- 
party  in  a  friend's  hut,  some  one  came  up  and  took  hold 
of  her  by  the  shoulders  and  shook  her,  which  is  (accord- 
ing to  the  legend)  the  Esquimaux  manner  of  declaring 
one's  love.  She  could  not  tell  who  it  was  in  the  dark, 
and  so  she  dipped  her  hand  in  some  soot  and  smeared 
one  of  his  cheeks  with  it.  When  a  light  was  struck  in 
the  hut,  she  saw,  to  her  dismay,  that  it  was  her  brother, 
and,  without  waiting  to  learn  any  more,  she  took  to  her 
heels.  He  started  in  hot  pursuit,  and  so  they  ran  till 
they  got  to  the  end  of  the  world,  —  the  jumping-ofif 
place,  —  when  they  both  jumped  into  the  sky.  There 
the  Moon  still  chases  his  sister,  the  Sun ;  and  every  now 
and  then  he  turns  his  sooty  cheek  toward  the  earth,  when 
he  becomes  so  dark  that  you  cannot  see  him.* 

Another  story,  which  I  cite  from  Mr.  Tylor,  shows  that 
Malays,  as  well  as  Indo-Europeans,  have  conceived  of  the 
clouds  as  swan-maidens.  In  the  island  of  Celebes  it  is 
said  that  "  seven  heavenly  nymphs  came  down  from  the 
sky  to  bathe,  and  they  were  seen  by  Kasimbaha,  who 
thought  first  that  they  were  white  doves,  but  in  the  bath 
he  saw  that  they  were  women.  Then  he  stole  one  of  the 
thin  robes  that  gave  the  nymphs  their  power  of  flying, 
and  so  he  caught  Utahagi,  the  one  whose  robe  he  had 
stolen,  and  took  her  for  his  wife,  and  she  bore  him  a  son. 

*  Tylor,  Early  History  of  Mankind,  p.  327. 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD. 


163 


Now  she  was  called  Utahagi  from  a  single  white  hair  she 
had,  which  was  endowed  with  magic  power,  and  this  hair 
her  husband  pulled  out.  As  soon  as  he  had  done  it, 
there  arose  a  great  storm,  and  Utahagi  went  up  to 
heaven.  The  child  cried  for  its  mother,  and  Kasim- 
baha  was  in  great  grief,  and  cast  about  how  he  should 
follow  Utahagi  up  into  the  sky."  Here  we  pass  to  the 
myth  of  Jack  and  the  Beanstalk.  "  A  rat  gnawed  the 
thorns  off  the  rattans,  and  Kasimbaha  clambered  up  by 
them  with  his  son  upon  his  back,  till  he  came  to  heaven. 
There  a  little  bird  showed  him  the  house  of  Utahagi,  and 
after  various  adventures  he  took  up  his  abode  among  the 
gods."* 

In  Siberia  we  find  a  legend  of  swan-maidens,  which 
also  reminds  us  of  the  story  of  the  Heartless  Giant.  A 
certain  Samojed  once  went  out  to  catch  foxes,  and  found 
seven  maidens  swimming  in  a  lake  surrounded  by  gloomy 
pine-trees,  while  their  feather  dresses  lay  on  the  shore. 
He  crept  up  and  stole  one  of  these  dresses,  and  by  and 
by  the  swan-maiden  came  to  him  shivering  with  cold  and 
promising  to  become  his  wife  if  he  would  only  give  her 
back  her  garment  of  feathers.  The  ungallant  fellow, 
however,  did  not  care  for  a  wife,  but  a  little  revenge  was 
not  unsuited  to  his  way  of  thinking.  There  were  seven 
robbers  who  used  to  prowl  about  the  neighbourhood,  and 
who,  when  they  got  home,  finding  their  hearts  in  the 
way,  used  to  hang  them  up  on  some  pegs  in  the  tent. 
One  of  these  robbers  had  killed  the  Samojed's  mother ; 
and  so  he  promised  to  return  the  swan-maiden's  dress 
after  she  should  have  procured  for  him  these  seven  hearts. 
So  she  stole  the  hearts,  and  the  Samojed  smashed  six  of 
them,  and  then  woke  up  the  seventh  robber,  and  told  him 
to  restore  his  mother  to  life,  on  pain  of  instant  death. 


♦  Tylor,  op.  cit.,  p.  846. 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


Then  the  robber  produced  a  purse  containing  the  old 
woman's  soul,  and  going  to  the  graveyard  shook  it  over 
her  bones,  and  she  revived  at  once.  Then  the  Samojed 
smashed  the  seventh  heart,  and  the  robber  died ;  and  so 
the  swan-maiden  got  back  her  plumage  and  flew  away 
rejoicing.* 

Swan-maidens  are  also,  according  to  Mr.  Baring-Gould, 
found  among  the  Minussinian  Tartars.  But  there  they 
appear  as  foul  demons,  like  the  Greek  Harpies,  who  de- 
light in  drinking  the  blood  of  men  slain  in  battle.  There 
are  forty  of  them,  who  darken  the  whole  firmament  in 
their  flight ;  but  sometimes  they  all  coalesce  into  one  great 
black  storm-fiend,  who  rages  for  blood,  like  a  werewolf 

In  South  Africa  we  find  the  werewolf  himself -I*  A 
certain  Hottentot  was  once  travelling  with  a  Bush  woman 
and  her  child,  when  they  perceived  at  a  distance  a  troop 
of  wild  horses.  The  man,  being  hungry,  asked  the 
woman  to  turn  herself  into  a  lioness  and  catch  one  of 
these  horses,  that  they  might  eat  of  it ;  whereupon  the 
woman  set  down  her  child,  and  taking  off  a  sort  of  petti- 
coat made  of  human  skin  became  instantly  transformed 
into  a  lioness,  which  rushed  across  the  plain,  struck  down 
ft  wild  horse  and  lapped  its  blood.  The  man  climbed  a 
tree  in  terror,  and  conjured  his  companion  to  resume  her 
natural  shape.  Then  the  lioness  came  back,  and  putting 
on  the  skirt  made  of  human  skin  reappeared  as  a  woman, 
and  took  up  her  child,  and  the  two  friends  resumed  their 
journey  after  making  a  meal  of  the  horse's  flesh.J 

*  Baring-Gould,  Curious  Myths,  II.  299-302. 

t  Speaking  of  beliefs  in  the  Malay  Archipelago,  Mr.  Wallace  says  : 
"  It  is  universally  believed  in  Lombock  that  some  men  have  the  power 
to  turn  themselves  into  crocodiles,  which  they  do  for  the  sake  of  devour- 
ing their  enemies,  and  many  strange  tales  are  told  of  such  transforma- 
tions."   Wallace,  Malay  Archipelago,  Vol.  I.  p.  251. 

X  Bleek,  Hottentot  Fables  and  Tales,  p.  58.  n 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD.  1 65 


The  werewolf  also  appears  in  North  America,  duly 
furnished  with  his  wolf-skin  sack ;  but  neither  in  Amer- 
ica nor  in  Africa  is  he  the  genuine  European  werewolf, 
inspired  by  a  diabolic  frenzy,  and  ravening  for  human 
flesh.  The  barbaric  myths  testify  to  the  belief  that  men 
can  be  changed  into  beasts  or  liave  in  some  cases  de- 
scended from  beast  ancestors,  but  the  application  of  this 
-belief  to  the  explanation  of  abnormal  cannibal  cravings 
seems  to  have  been  confined  to  Europe.  The  werewolf 
of  the  Middle  Ages  was  not  merely  a  transformed  man, 
—  he  was  an  insane  cannibal,  whose  monstrous  appetite, 
due  to  the  machinations  of  the  Devil,  showed  its  power 
over  his  physical  organism  by  changing  tlie  shape  of  it. 
The  barbaric  werewolf  is  the  product  of  a  lower  and 
simpler  kind  of  thinking.  There  is  no  diabolism  about 
him ;  for  barbaric  races,  while  believing  in  the  existence 
of  hurtful  and  malicious  fiends,  have  not  a  sufficiently 
vivid  sense  of  moral  abnormity  to  form  the  conception 
of  diabolism.  And  the  cannibal  craving,  which  to  the 
mediseval  European  was  a  phenomenon  so  strange  as  to 
demand  a  mythological  explanation,  would  not  impress 
the  barbarian  as  either  very  exceptional  or  very  blame- 
worthy. 

In  the  folk-lore  of  the  Zulus,  one  of  the  most  quick- 
witted and  intelligent  of  African  races,  the  cannibal  pos- 
sesses many  features  in  common  with  the  Scandinavian 
Troll,  who  also  has  a  liking  for  human  flesh.  As  we  saw 
in  the  preceding  paper,  the  Troll  has  very  likely  derived 
some  of  his  characteristics  from  reminiscences  of  tho 
barbarous  races  who  preceded  the  Aryans  in  Central  and 
Northern  Europe.  In  like  manner  the  long-haired  can- 
nibal of  Zulu  nursery  literature,  who  is  always  repre- 
sented as  belonging  to  a  distinct  race,  has  been  supposed 
to  be  explained  by  the  existence  of  inferior  races  gon- 


1 66  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

quered  and  displaced  by  the  Zulus.  Nevertheless,  as 
Dr.  Callaway  observes,  neither  the  long-haired  mountain 
cannibals  of  Western  Africa,  nor  the  Tulahs,  nor  the 
tribes  of  Eghedal  described  by  Barth,  "  can  be  considered 
as  answering  to  the  description  of  long-haired  as  given 
in  the  Zulu  legends  of  cannibals  ;  neither  could  they 

possibly  have  formed  their  historical  basis  It  is 

perfectly  clear  that  the  cannibals  of  the  Zulu  legends  are 
not  common  men;  they  are  magnified  into  giants  and 
magicians ;  they  are  remarkably  swift  and  enduring ; 
fierce  and  terrible  warriors."  Very  probably  they  may 
have  a  mythical  origin  in  modes  of  thought  akin  to  those 
which  begot  the  Panis  of  the  Veda  and  the  Northern 
Trolls.  The  parallelism  is  perhaps  the  most  remarkable 
one  which  can  be  found  in  comparing  barbaric  with 
Aryan  folk-lore.  Like  the  Panis  and  Trolls,  the  canni- 
bals are  represented  as  the  foes  of  the  solar  hero  Uthla- 
kknyana,  who  is  almost  as  great  a  traveller  as  Odysseus, 
and  whose  presence  of  mind  amid  trying  circumstances 
is  not  to  be  surpassed  by  that  of  the  incomparable  Boots. 
Uthlakanyana  is  as  precocious  as  Herakles  or  Hermes. 
He  speaks  before  he  is  born,  and  no  sooner  has  he  en- 
tered the  world  than  he  begins  to  outwit  other  people 
and  get  possession  of  their  property.  He  works  bitter 
ruin  for  the  cannibals,  who,  with  all  their  strength  and 
fleetness,  are  no  better  endowed  with  quick  wit  than  the 
Trolls,  whom  Boots  invariably  victimizes.  On  one  of  his 
journeys,  Uthlakanyana  fell  in  with  a  cannibal.  Their 
greetings  were  cordial  enough,  and  they  ate  a  bit  of  leop- 
ard together,  and  began  to  build  a  house,  and  killed  a 
couple  of  cows,  but  the  cannibal's  cow  was  lean,  while 
Uthlakanyana's  was  fat.  Then  the  crafty  traveller,  fear- 
ing that  his  companion  might  insist  upon  having  the  fat 
cow,  turned  and  said,  "'Let  the  house  be, thatched  now.,* 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD.  167 

then  we  can  eat  our  meat.  You  see  the  sky,  that  we 
shall  get  wet.'  The  cannibal  said,  *  You  are  right,  child 
of  my  sister ;  you  are  a  man  indeed  in  saying,  let  us 
thatch  the  house,  for  we  shall  get  wet.'  Uthlakanyana 
said,  '  Do  you  do  it  then ;  I  will  go  inside,  and  push  the 
thatching-needle  for  you,  in  the  house.'  The  cannibal 
went  up.  His  hair  was  very,  very  long.  Uthlakanyana 
went  inside  and  pushed  the  needle  for  him.  He  thatched 
in  the  hair  of  the  cannibal,  tying  it  very  tightly  ;  he 
knotted  it  into  the  thatch  constantly,  taking  it  by  sep- 
arate locks  and  fastening  it  firmly,  that  it  might  be  tightly 
fastened  to  the  house."  Then  the  rogue  went  outside 
and  began  to  eat  of  the  cow  which  was  roasted.  "  The 
cannibal  said,  '  What  are  you  about,  child  of  my  sister  ? 
Let  us  just  finish  the  house  ;  afterwards  we  can  do  that ; 
we  will  do  it  together.'  Uthlakanyana  replied,  'Come 
down  then.  I  cannot  go  into  the  house  any  more.  The 
thatching  is  finished.'  The  cannibal  assented.  When 
he  thought  he  was  going  to  quit  the  house,  he  was  un- 
able to  quit  it.  He  cried  out  saying,  '  Child  of  my  sister, 
how  have  you  managed  your  thatching  ? '  Uthlakanyana 
said, '  See  to  it  yourself  I  have  thatched  well,  for  I  shall 
not  have  any  dispute.  Now  I  am  about  to  eat  in  peace  ; 
I  no  longer  dispute  with  anybody,  for  I  am  now  alone 
with  my  cow.'"  So  the  cannibal  cried  and  raved  and 
appealed  in  vain  to  Uthlakany ana's  sense  of  justice,  until 
by  and  by  "  the  sky  came  with  hailstones  and  lightning. 
Uthlakanyana  took  all  the  meat  into  the  house ;  he 
stayed  in  the  house  and  lit  a  fire.  It  hailed  and  rained. 
The  cannibal  cried  on  the  top  of  the  house ;  he  was 
stmck  with  the  hailstones,  and  died  there  on  the  house. 
It  cleared.  Uthlakanyana  went  out  and  said,  'Uncle, 
just  come  down,  and  come  to  me.  It  has  become  clear. 
It  no  longer  rains,  and  there  is  no  more  hail,  neither  is 


i68 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


there  any  more  lightning.    Why  are  yon  silent  ? '  So 

Uthlakanyana  ate  his  cow  alone,  until  he  had  finished  it. 
He  then  went  on  his  way."  * 

In  another  Zulu  legend,  a  girl  is  stolen  by  cannibals, 
and  shut  up  in  the  rock  Itshe-likantunjambili,  which,  like 
the  rock  of  the  Forty  Thieves,  opens  and  shuts  at  the 
command  of  those  who  understand  its  secret.  She  gets 
possession  of  the  secret  and  escapes,  and  when  the  mon- 
sters pursue  her  she  throws  on  the  ground  a  calabash  full 
of  sesame,  which  they  stop  to  eat.  At  last,  getting  tired 
of  running,  she  climbs  a  tree,  and  there  she  finds  her 
brother,  who,  warned  by  a  dream,  has  come  out  to  look 
for  her.  They  ascend  the  tree  together  until  they  come 
to  a  beautiful  country  well  stocked  with  fat  oxen.  They 
kill  an  ox,  and  while  its  flesh  is  roasting  they  amuse  them- 
selves by  making  a  stout  thong  of  its  hide.  By  and  by 
one  of  the  cannibals,  smelling  the  cooking  meat,  comes 
to  the  foot  of  the  tree,  and  looking  up  discovers  the  boy 
and  girl  in  the  sky-country  !  They  invite  him  up  there 
to  share  in  their  feast,  and  throw  him  an  end  of  the 
thong  by  which  to  climb  up.  When  the  cannibal  is 
dangling  midway  between  eartli  and  heaven,  tliey  let  go 
the  rope,  and  down  he  falls  with  a  terrible  crash.-|- 

In  this  story  the  enchanted  rock  opened  by  a  talis- 
manic  formula  brings  us  again  into  contact  with  Indo- 
European  folk-lore.  And  that  the  conception  has  in  both 
cases  been  suggested  by  the  same  natural  phenomenon  is 
rendered  probable  by  another  Zulu  tale,  in  which  the 
cannibal's  cave  is  opened  by  a  swallow  which  flies  in  the 
air.    Here  we  have  the  elements  of  a  genuine  lightning- 

*  Callaway,  Zulu  Kursery  Tales,  pp.  27  -  30. 

+  Callaway,  op.  cit.  pp.  142-152  ;  cf.  a  similar  story  in  which  the 
lion  is  fooled  by  the  jackal.  Bleek,  op.  cit.  p.  7.  I  omit  the  sequel 
of  the  tale. 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD.  1 69 


myth.  We  see  that  among  these  African  barbarians,  as 
well  as  among  our  own  forefathers,  the  clouds  have  been 
conceived  as  birds  carrying  the  lightning  which  can  cleave 
the  rocks.  In  America  we  find  the  same  notion  prevalent. 
The  Dakotahs  explain  the  thunder  as  "  the  sound  of  the 
cloud-bird  flapping  his  wings,"  and  the  Caribs  describe 
the  lightning  as  a  poisoned  dart  which  the  bird  blows 
through  a  hollow  reed,  after  the  Carib  style  of  shooting.* 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Kamtchatkans  know  nothing  of  a 
cloud-bird,  but  explain  the  lightning  as  something  anal- 
ogous to  the  flames  of  a  volcano.  The  Kamtchatkans 
say  that  when  the  mountain  goblins  have  got  their  stoves 
well  heated  up,  they  throw  overboard,  with  true  barbaric 
shiftlessness,  all  the  brands  not  needed  for  immediate  use, 
which  makes  a  volcanic  eruption.  So  when  it  is  summer 
on  earth,  it  is  winter  in  heaven ;  and  the  gods,  after  heat- 
ing up  their  stoves,  throw  away  their  spare  kindling- 
wood,  which  makes  the  lightning. -f* 

When  treating  of  Indo-European  solar  myths,  we  saw 
the  unvarying,  ^  unresting  course  of  the  sun  variously 
explained  as  due  to  the  s\ibjection  of  Herakles  to  Eurys- 
theus,  to  the  anger  of  Poseidon  at  Odysseus,  or  to  the  curse 
laid  upon  the  Wandering  Jew.  The  barbaric  mind  has 
worked  at  the  same  problem ;  but  the  explanations 
which  it  has  given  are  more  childlike  and  more  gro- 
tesque. A  Polynesian  myth  tells  how  the  Sun  used  to  race 
through  the  sky  so  fast  that  men  could  not  get  enough 
daylight  to  hunt  game  for  their  subsistence.  By  and  by 
an  inventive  genius,  named  Maui,  conceived  the  idea  of 
catching  the  Sun  in  a  noose  and  making  him  go  more 
deliberately.  "  He  plaited  ropes  and  made  a  strong  net, 
and,  arming  himself  with  the  jawbone  of  his  ancestress, 
Muri-ranga-whenua,  caUed  together  all  his  brethren,  and 

*  Brinton,  op.  cit.  p.  104.  +  Tylor,  op.  cit.  p.  320. 

8 


/70 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


they  journeyed  to  the  place  where  the  Sun  rises,  and 
there  spread  the  net.  When  the  Sun  came  up,  he  stuck 
his  head  and  fore-paws  into  the  net,  and  while  the  broth- 
ers tightened  the  ropes  so  that  they  cut  him  and  made 
him  scream  for  mercy,  Maui  beat  him  with  the  jawbone 
until  he  became  so  weak  that  ever  since  he  has  only  been 
able  to  crawl  through  the  sky.  According  to  another 
Polynesian  myth,  there  was  once  a  grumbling  Eadical, 
who  never  could  be  satisfied  with  the  way  in  which 
things  are  managed  on  this  earth.  This  bold  Eadical  set 
out  to  build  a  stone  house  which  should  last  forever ;  but 
the  days  were  so  short  and  the  stones  so  heavy  that  he 
despaired  of  ever  accomplishing  his  project.  One  night, 
as  he  lay  awake  thinking  the  matter  over,  it  occurred  to 
him  that  if  he  could  catch  the  Sun  in  a  net,  he  could 
have  as  much  daylight  as  was  needful  in  order  to  finish 
his  house.  So  he  borrowed  a  noose  from  the  god  Itu, 
and,  it  being  autumn,  when  the  Sun  gets  sleepy  and  stu- 
pid, he  easily  caught  the  luminary.  The  Sun  cried  till 
his  tears  made  a  great  freshet  which  nearly  drowned  the 
island ;  but  it  was  of  no  use ;  there  he  is  tethered  to  this 
day. 

Similar  stories  are  met  with  in  IS'orth  America.  A 
Dog-Eib  Indian  once  chased  a  squirrel  up  a  tree  until  he 
reached  the  sky.  There  he  set  a  snare  for  the  squirrel 
and  climbed  down  again.  Next  day  the  Sun  was  caught 
in  the  snare,  and  night  came  on  at  once.  That  is  to  say, 
the  sun  was  eclipsed.  "Something  wrong  up  there," 
thought  the  Indian,  "  I  must  have  caught  the  Sun  " ;  and 
so  he  sent  up  ever  so  many  animals  to  release  the  captive. 
They  were  aU  burned  to  ashes,  but  at  last  the  mole, 
going  up  and  burrowing  out  through  the  ground  of  the 
sky,  (!)  succeeded  in  gnawing  asunder  the  cords  of  the 
snare.  Just  as  it  thrust  its  head  out  through  the  opening 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BARBARIC  WORLD.  1 71 


made  in  the  sky-ground,  it  received  a  flash  of  liglit 
which  put  its  eyes  out,  and  that  is  why  the  mole  is  bhnd. 
The  Sun  got  away,  but  has  ever  since  travelled  more  de- 
liberately.* 

These  sun-myths,  many  more  of  which  are  to  be  found 
collected  in  Mr.  Tylor's  excellent  treatise  on  "  The  Early 
History  of  Mankind,"  well  illustrate  both  the  similarity 
and  the  diversity  of  the  results  obtained  by  the  primitive 
mind,  in  different  times  and  countries,  when  engaged 
upon  similar  problems.  No  one  would  think  of  referring 
these  stories  to  a  common  traditional  origin  with  the 
myths  of  Herakles  and  Odysseus ;  yet  both  classes  of 
tales  were  devised  to  explain  the  same  phenomenon. 
Both  to  the  Aryan  and  to  the  Polynesian  the  steadfast 
but  deliberate  journey  of  the  sun  through  the  firmament 
was  a  strange  circumstance  which  called  for  explanation ; 
but  while  the  meagre  intelligence  of  the  barbarian  could 
only  attain  to  the  quaint  conception  of  a  man  throwing 
a  noose  over  the  sun's  head,  the  rich  imagination  of  the 
Indo-European  created  the  noble  picture  of  Herakles 
doomed  to  serve  the  son  of  Sthenelos,  in  accordance  with 
the  resistless  decree  of  fate. 

Another  world-wide  myth,  which  shows  how  similar 
are  the  mental  habits  of  uncivilized  men,  is  the  myth  of 
the  tortoise.  The  Hindu  notion  of  a  great  tortoise  that 
lies  beneath  the  earth  and  keeps  it  from  falling  is  famil- 
iar to  every  reader.  According  to  one  account,  this  tor- 
toise, swimming  in  the  primeval  ocean,  bears  the  earth 
on  his  back ;  but  by  and  by,  when  the  gods  get  ready  to 
destroy  mankind,  the  tortoise  will  grow  weary  and  sink 
under  his  load,  and  then  the  earth  will  be  overwhelmed 
by  a  deluge.  Another  legend  tells  us  that  when  the  gods 
and  demons  took  Mount  Mandara  for  a  churning-stick 

♦  Tylor,  op.  cit.  pp.  338  -  343. 


1/2 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


and  churned  the  ocean  to  make  ambrosia,  the  god  Vishnu 
took  on  the  form  of  a  tortoise  and  lay  at  the  bottom  of 
the  sea,  as  a  pivot  for  the  whirling  mountain  to  rest 
upon.  But  these  versions  of  the  myth  are  not  primitive. 
In  the  original  conception  the  world  is  itself  a  gigantic 
tortoise  swimming  in  a  boundless  ocean ;  the  flat  surface 
of  the  earth  is  the  lower  plate  which  covers  the  reptile's 
belly ;  the  rounded  shell  which  covers  his  back  is  the 
sky ;  and  the  human  race  lives  and  moves  and  has  its 
being  inside  of  the  tortoise.  Now,  as  Mr.  Tylor  has 
pointed  out,  many  tribes  of  Eedskins  hold  substantially 
the  same  theory  of  the  universe.  They  regard  the  tor- 
toise as  the  symbol  of  the  world,  and  address  it  as  the 
mother  of  mankind.  Once,  before  the  earth  was  made, 
the  king  of  heaven  quarrelled  with  his  wife,  and  gave 
her  such  a  terrible  kick  that  she  fell  down  into  the 
sea.  Fortunately  a  tortoise  received  her  on  his  back, 
and  proceeded  to  raise  up  the  earth,  upon  which  the 
heavenly  woman  became  the  mother  of  mankind.  These 
first  men  had  white  faces,  and  they  used  to  dig  in  the 
ground  to  catch  badgers.  One  day  a  zealous  burrower 
thrust  his  knife  too  far  and  stabbed  the  tortoise,  which 
immediately  sank  into  the  sea  and  drowned  all  the 
human  race  save  one  man.*  In  Finnish  mythology  the 
world  is  not  a  tortoise,  but  it  is  an  egg,  of  which  the 
white  part  is  the  ocean,  the  yolk  is  the  earth,  and  the 
arched  shell  is  the  sky.  In  India  this  is  the  mundane 
egg  of  Brahma ;  and  it  reappears  among  the  Yorubas  as 
a  pair  of  calabashes  put  together  like  oyster-shells,  one 
making  a  dome  over  the  other.  In  Zulu-land  the  earth 
is  a  huge  beast  called  Usilosimapundu,  whose  face  is  a 
rock,  and  whose  mouth  is  very  large  and  broad  and  red : 
"  in  some  countries  which  were  on  his  body  it  was  win- 


*  Tylor,  op.  cit.  p.  336. 


MYTHS  OF  THE  BAB£A£IC  WORLD. 


ter,  and  in  others  it  was  early  harvest."  Many  broad 
rivers  flow  over  his  back,  and  he  is  covered  with  forests 
and  hills,  as  is  indicated  in  his  name,  which  means  "  the 
rugose  or  knotty-backed  beast."  In  this  group  of  con- 
ceptions may  be  seen  the  origin  of  Sindbad's  great  fish, 
which  lay  still  so  long  that  sand  and  clay  gradually  ac- 
cumulated upon  its  back,  and  at  last  it  became  covered 
with  trees.  And  lastly,  passing  from  barbaric  folk-lore 
and  from  the  Arabian  Nights  to  the  highest  level  of  Indo- 
European  intelligence,  do  we  not  find  both  Plato  and 
Kepler  amusing  themselves  with  speculations  in  which 
the  earth  figures  as  a  stupendous  animal  ? 


November,  1870. 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


JUYENTUS  MUNDI  * 

TWELVE  years  ago,  when,  in  concluding  his  "  Studies 
on  Homer  and  the  Homeric  Age,"  Mr.  Gladstone 
applied  to  himself  the  warning  addressed  by  Agamemnon 
to  the  priest  of  Apollo, "  Let  not  Nemesis  catch  me  by  the 
swift  ships, 

fj  vvv  BrjOvfOVT,  ^  varepov  av9is  lovTa" 

he  would  seem  to  have  intended  it  as  a  last  farewell  to 
classical  studies.  Yet,  whatever  his  intentions  may  have 
been,  they  have  yielded  to  the  sweet  desire  of  revisiting 
familiar  ground,  —  a  desire  as  strong  in  the  breast  of  the 
classical  scholar  as  was  the  yearning  which  led  Odysseus 
to  reject  the  proffered  gift  of  immortality,  so  that  he 
might  but  once  more  behold  the  wreathed  smoke  curl- 
ing about  the  roofs  of  his  native  Ithaka.  In  this  new 
treatise,  on  the  "Youth  of  the  World,"  Mr.  Gladstone 
discusses  the  same  questions  which  were  treated  in  his 
earlier  work ;  and  the  main  conclusions  reached  in  the 
"  Studies  on  Homer"  are  here  so  little  modified  with  refer- 
ence to  the  recent  progress  of  archeeological  inquiries, 
that  the  book  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  had  any  other 
reason  for  appearing,  save  the  desire  of  loitering  by  the 
ships  of  the  Argives,  and  of  returning  thither  as  often  as 
possible. 

*  Juventus  Mundi.  The  Gods  and  Men  of  the  Heroic  Age.  By  the 
Rt.  Hon.  William  Ewart  Gladstone.  Boston  :  Little,  Brown,  &  Co. 
1869. 


JUVENTUS  MUNDL 


The  title  selected  by  Mr.  Gladstone  for  his  new  work 
is  either  a  very  appropriate  one  or  a  strange  misnomer, 
according  to  the  point  of  view  from  which  it  is  regarded. 
Such  being  the  case,  we  might  readily  acquiesce  in  its 
use,  and  pass  it  by  without  comment,  trusting  that  the 
author  understood  himself  when  he  adopted  it,  were  it 
not  that  by  incidental  references,  and  especially  by  his 
allusions  to  the  legendary  literature  of  the  Jews,  Mr. 
Gladstone  shows  that  he  means  more  by  the  title  than  it 
can  fairly  be  made  to  express.  An  author  who  seeks  to 
determine  prehistoric  events  by  references  to  Kadmos, 
and  Danaos,  and  Abraham,  is  at  once  liable  to  the  sus- 
picion of  holding  very  inadequate  views  as  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  epoch  which  may  properly  be  termed  the 
"  youth  of  the  world."  Often  in  reading  Mr.  Gladstone 
we  are  reminded  of  Kenan's  strange  suggestion  that  an 
exploration  of  the  Hindu  Kush  territory,  whence  prob- 
ably came  the  primitive  Aryans,  might  throw  some  new 
light  on  the  origin  of  language.  Nothing  could  well  be 
more  futile.  The  primitive  Aryan  language  has  already 
been  partly  reconstructed  for  us ;  its  grammatical  forms 
and  syntactic  devices  are  becoming  familiar  to  scholars  ; 
one  great  philologist  has  even  composed  a  tale  in  it ;  yet 
in  studying  this  long-buried  dialect  we  are  not  much 
nearer  the  first  beginnings  of  liuman  speech  than  in 
studying  the  Greek  of  Homer,  the  Sanskrit  of  the  Vedas, 
or  the  Umbrian  of  the  Iguvine  Inscriptions.  The  Aryan 
mother-tongue  had  passed  into  the  last  of  the  three  stages 
of  linguistic  growth  long  before  the  break-up  of  the 
tribal  communities  in  Aryana-vaedjo,  and  at  that  early 
date  presented  a  less  primitive  structure  than  is  to  be 
seen  in  the  Chinese  or  the  Mongolian  of  our  own  times. 
So  the  state  of  society  depicted  in  the  Homeric  poems, 
and  well  illustrated  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  is  many  degrees 


1/6 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


less  primitive  than  that  which  is  revealed  to  us  by  the 
archseological  researches  either  of  Pictet  and  Windisch- 
mann,  or  of  Tylor,  Lubbock,  and  M'Lennan.  We  shall 
gather  evidences  of  this  as  we  proceed.  Meanwhile  let 
us  remember  that  at  least  eleven  thousand  years  before 
the  Homeric  age  men  lived  in  communities,  and  manu- 
factured pottery  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile ;  and  let  us 
not  leave  wholly  out  of  sight  that  more  distant  period, 
perhaps  a  million  years  ago,  when  sparse  tribes  of  savage 
men,  contemporaneous  with  the  mammoths  of  Siberia 
and  the  cave-tigers  of  Britain,  struggled  against  the  in- 
tense cold  of  the  glacial  winters. 

Nevertheless,  though  the  Homeric  age  appears  to  be  a 
late  one  when  considered  with  reference  to  the  whole 
career  of  the  human  race,  there  is  a  point  of  view  from 
which  it  may  be  justly  regarded  as  the  "  youth  of  the 
world."  However  long  man  may  have  existed  upon  the 
earth,  he  becomes  thoroughly  and  distinctly  human  in 
the  eyes  of  the  historian  only  at  the  epoch  at  which  he 
began  to  create  for  himself  a  literature.  As  far  back  as 
we  can  trace  the  progress  of  the  human  race  continuously 
by  means  of  the  written  word,  so  far  do  we  feel  a  true 
historical  interest  in  its  fortunes,  and  pursue  our  studies 
with  a  sympathy  which  the  mere  lapse  of  time  is  pow- 
erless to  impair.  But  the  primeval  man,  whose  history 
never  has  been  and  never  will  be  written,  whose  career 
on  the  earth,  dateless  and  chartless,  can  be  dimly  re- 
vealed to  us  only  by  palaeontology,  excites  in  us  a  very 
different  feeling.  Though  with  the  keenest  interest  we 
ransack  every  nook  and  corner  of  the  earth's  surface  for 
information  about  him,  we  are  all  the  while  aware  that 
what  we  are  studying  is  human  zoology  and  not  history. 
Our  Neanderthal  man  is  a  specimen,  not  a  character.  We 
cannot  ask  him  the  Homeric  question,  what  is  his  name, 


JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 


177 


who  were  his  parents,  and  how  did  he  get  where  we 
found  him.  His  language  has  died  with  him,  and  he  can 
render  no  account  of  himself  We  can  only  regard  him 
specifically  as  Homo  AntJuvpos,  a  creature  of  bigger  brain 
than  his  congener  Bomo  Pithekos,  and  of  vastly  greater 
promise.  But  this,  we  say,  is  physical  science,  and  not 
history. 

For  the  historian,  therefore,  who  studies  man  in  his 
various  social  relations,  the  youth  of  the  world  is  the 
period  at  which  literature  begins.  We  regard  the  history 
of  the  western  world  as  beginning  about  the  tenth  cen- 
tury before  the  Christian  era,  because  at  that  date  we 
find  literature,  in  Greece  and  Palestine,  beginning  to 
throw  direct  light  upon  the  social  and  intellectual  condi- 
tion of  a  portion  of  mankind.  That  great  empires,  rich 
in  historical  interest  and  in  materials  for  sociological 
generalizations,  had  existed  for  centuries  before  that 
date,  in  Egypt  and  Assyria,  we  do  not  doubt,  since  they 
appear  at  the  dawn  of  history  with  all  the  marks  of  great 
antiquity ;  but  the  only  steady  historical  light  thrown 
upon  them  shines  from  the  pages  of  Greek  and  Hebrew 
authors,  and  these  know  them  only  in  their  latest  period. 
For  information  concerning  their  early  careers  we  must 
look,  not  to  history,  but  to  linguistic  archaeology,  a  science 
which  can  help  us  to  general  results,  but  cannot  enable 
us  to  fix  dates,  save  in  the  crudest  manner. 

We  mention  the  tenth  century  before  Christ  as  the 
earliest  period  at  which  we  can  begin  to  study  human 
society  in  general  and  Greek  society  in  particular,  through 
the  medium  of  literature.  But,  strictly  speaking,  the 
epoch  in  question  is  one  which  cannot  be  fixed  with 
accuracy.  The  earliest  ascertainable  date  in  Greek 
history  is  that  of  the  Olympiad  of  Koroibos,  B.  C.  776. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Homeric  poems  were  written 

8*  L 


178 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


before  this  date,  and  that  Homer  is  therefore  strictly 
preliistoric.  Had  this  fact  been  duly  realized  by  those 
scholars  who  have  not  attempted  to  deny  it,  a  vast 
amount  of  profitless  discussion  might  have  been  avoided. 
Sooner  or  later,  as  Grote  says,  "  the  lesson  must  be  learnt, 
hard  and  painful  though  it  be,  that  no  imaginable  reach 
of  critical  acumen  will  of  itself  enable  us  to  discriminate 
fancy  from  reality,  in  the  absence  of  a  tolerable  stock  of 
evidence."  We  do  not  know  who  Homer  was ;  we  do 
not  know  where  or  when  he  lived  ;  and  in  all  probability 
we  shall  never  know.  The  data  for  settling  the  question 
are  not  now  accessible,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  they  will 
ever  be  discovered.  Even  in  early  antiquity  the  question 
was  wrapped  in  an  obscurity  as  deep  as  that  which 
shrouds  it  to-day.  The  case  between  the  seven  or  eight 
cities  which  claimed  to  be  the  birthplace  of  the  poet, 
and  which  Welcker  has  so  ably  discussed,  cannot  be 
decided.  The  feebleness  of  the  evidence  brought  into 
court  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  the  claims  of 
Chios  and  the  story  of  the  poet's  blindness  rest  alike 
upon  a  doubtful  allusion  in  the  Hymn  to  Apollo,  which 
Thukydides  (III.  104)  accepted  as  authentic.  The  ma- 
jority of  modern  critics  have  consoled  themselves  with  the 
vague  conclusion  that,  as  between  the  two  great  divisions 
of  the  early  Greek  world.  Homer  at  least  belonged  to 
the  Asiatic.  But  Mr.  Gladstone  has  shown  good  reasons 
for  doubting  this  opinion.  He  has  pointed  out  several 
instances  in  which  the  poems  seem  to  betray  a  closer 
topographical  acquaintance  with  European  than  with 
Asiatic  Greece,  and  concludes  that  Athens  and  Argos 
have  at  least  as  good  a  claim  to  Homer  as  Chios  or 
Smyrna. 

It  is  far  more  desirable  that  we  should  form  an  approx- 
imate opinion  as  to  the  date  of  the  Homeric  poems,  than 


JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 


179 


that  we  should  seek  to  determine  the  exact  locality  in 
which  they  originated.  Yet  the  one  question  is  hardly 
less  obscure  than  the  other.  Different  writers  of  antiq- 
uity assigned  eight  different  epochs  to  Homer,  of  which 
the  earliest  is  separated  from  the  most  recent  by  an  in- 
terval of  four  hundred  and  sixty  years,  —  a  period  as 
long  as  that  which  separates  the  Black  Prince  from  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  or  the  age  of  Perikles  from  the 
Christian  era.  While  Theopompos  quite  preposterously 
brings  him  down  as  late  as  the  twenty- third  Olympiad, 
Krates  removes  him  to  the  twelfth  century  B.  C.  The 
date  ordinarily  accepted  by  modern  critics  is  the  one 
assigned  by  Herodotos,  880  B.  C.  Yet  Mr.  Gladstone 
shows  reasons,  which  appear  to  me  convincing,  for  doubt- 
ing or  rejecting  this  date. 

I  refer  to  the  much-abused  legend  of  the  Children  of 
Herakles,  which  seems  capable  of  yielding  an  item  of 
trustworthy  testimony,  provided  it  be  circumspectly  dealt 
with.  I  differ  from  Mr.  Gladstone  in  not  regarding  the 
legend  as  historical  in  its  present  shape.  In  my  appre- 
hension, Hyllos  and  Oxylos,  as  historical  personages,  have 
no  value  whatever ;  and  I  faithfully  follow  Mr.  Grote,  in 
refusing  to  accept  any  date  earlier  than  the  Olympiad  of 
Koroibos.  The  tale  of  the  "  Eeturn  of  the  Herakleids  " 
is  undoubtedly  as  unworthy  of  credit  as  the  legend  of 
Hengst  and  Horsa ;  yet,  like  the  latter,  it  doubtless  em- 
bodies a  historical  occurrence.  One  cannot  approve,  as 
scholarlike  or  philosophical,  the  scepticism  of  Mr.  Cox, 
who  can  see  in  the  whole  narrative  nothing  but  a  solar 
myth.  There  certainly  was  a  time  when  the  Dorian 
tribes  —  described  in  the  legend  as  the  allies  of  the 
Children  of  Herakles  —  conquered  Peloponnesos ;  and  that 
time  was  certainly  subsequent  to  the  composition  of  the 
Homeric  poems.    It  is  incredible  that  the  Iliad  and  the 


l80  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

Odyssey  should  ignore  the  existence  of  Dorians  in  Pelo- 
ponnesos,  if  there  were  Dorians  not  only  dwelling  but 
ruling  there  at  the  time  when  the  poems  were  written. 
The  poems  are  very  accurate  and  rigorously  consistent 
in  their  use  of  ethnical  appellatives ;  and  their  author, 
in  speaking  of  Achaians  and  Argives,  is  as  evidently 
alluding  to  peoples  directly  known  to  him,  as  is  Shake- 
speare when  he  mentions  Danes  and  Scotchmen.  Now 
Homer  knows  Achaians,  Argives,  and  Pelasgians  dwell- 
ing in  Peloponnesos  ;  and  he  knows  Dorians  also,  but 
only  as  a  people  inhabiting  Crete.  (Odyss.  XIX.  175.) 
With  Homer,  moreover,  the  Hellenes  are  not  the  Greeks 
in  general,  but  only  a  people  dwelling  in  the  north,  in 
Thessaly.  When  these  poems  were  written,  Greece  was 
not  known  as  Hellas,  but  as  Achaia, — the  whole  country 
taking  its  name  from  the  Achaians,  the  dominant  race  in 
Peloponnesos.  Now  at  the  beginning  of  the  truly  his- 
torical period,  in  the  eighth  century  B.  C,  all  this  is 
changed.  The  Greeks  as  a  people  are  called  Hellenes ; 
the  Dorians  rule  in  Peloponnesos,  while  their  lands  are 
tilled  by  Argive  Helots  ;  and  the  Achaians  appear  only 
as  an  insignificant  people  occupying  the  southern  shore 
of  the  Corinthian  Gulf.  How  this  change  took  place  we 
cannot  tell.  The  explanation  of  it  can  never  be  obtained 
from  history,  though  some  light  may  perhaps  be  thrown 
upon  it  by  linguistic  archaeology.  But  at  all  events  it 
was  a  great  change,  and  could  not  have  taken  place  in  a 
moment.  It  is  fair  to  suppose  that  the  Helleno-Dorian 
conquest  must  have  begun  at  least  a  century  before  the 
first  Olympiad ;  for  otherwise  the  geographical  limits 
of  the  various  Greek  races  would  not  have  been  so  com- 
pletely established  as  we  find  them  to  have  been  at  that 
date.  The  Greeks,  indeed,  supposed  it  to  have  begun  at 
least  three  centuries  earlier,  but  it  is  impossible  to  collect 


JUVENTUS  MUNDL 


i8i 


evidence  which  will  either  refute  or  establish  that  opin- 
ion. For  our  purposes  it  is  enough  to  know  that  the  con- 
quest could  not  have  taken  place  later  than  900  B.  C. ; 
and  if  this  be  the  case,  the  minimum  date  for  the  com- 
position of  the  Homeric  poems  must  be  the  tenth  century 
before  Christ;  which  is,  in  fact,  the  date  assigned  by 
Aristotle.  Thus  far,  and  no  farther,  I  believe  it  possible 
to  go  with  safety.  Whether  the  poems  were  composed  in 
the  tenth,  eleventh,  or  twelfth  century  cannot  be  deter- 
mined. We  are  justified  only  in  placing  them  far  enough 
back  to  allow  the  Helleno-Dorian  conquest  to  intervene 
between  their  composition  and  the  beginning  of  recorded 
history:  The  tenth  century  B.  C.  is  the  latest  date  which 
will  account  for  all  the  phenomena  involved  in  the  case, 
and  with  this  result  we  must  be  satisfied.  Even  on  this 
showing,  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  appear  as  the  oldest  ex- 
isting specimens  of  Aryan  literature,  save  perhaps  the 
hymns  of  the  Eig-Yeda  and  the  sacred  books  of  the 
Avesta. 

The  apparent  difficulty  of  preserving  such  long  poems 
for  three  or  four  centuries  without  the  aid  of  writing  may 
seem  at  first  sight  to  justify  the  hypothesis  of  Wolf,  that 
they  are  mere  collections  of  ancient  ballads,  like  those 
which  make  up  the  Mahabliarata,  preserved  in  the 
memories  of  a  dozen  or  twenty  bards,  and  first  arranged 
under  the  orders  of  Peisistratos.  But  on  a  careful  ex- 
amination this  hypothesis  is  seen  to  raise  more  difficul- 
ties than  it  solves.  What  was  there  in  the  position  of 
Peisistratos,  or  of  Athens  itself  in  the  sixth  century 
B.  C,  so  authoritative  as  to  compel  all  Greeks  to  recog- 
nize the  recension  then  and  there  made  of  their  revered 
poet  ?  Besides  which  the  celebrated  ordinance  of  Solon 
respecting  the  rhapsodes  at  the  Panathenaia  obliges  us 
to  infer  the  existence  of  written  manuscripts  of  Homer 


182 


MYTMS  Am  MYTH^MAKEES. 


previous  to  550  B.  C.  As  Mr.  Grote  well  observes,  the 
interference  of  Peisistratos  "presupposes  a  certain  fore- 
known and  ancient  aggregate,  the  main  lineaments  of 
which  were  familiar  to  the  Grecian  public,  although 
many  of  the  rhapsodes  in  their  practice  may  have  de- 
viated from  it  both  by  omission  and  interpolation.  In 
correcting  the  Athenian  recitations  conformably  with 
such  understood  general  type,  Peisistratos  might  hope 
both  to  procure  respect  for  Athens  and  to  constitute  a 
fashion  for  the  rest  of  Greece.  But  this  step  of  '  collect- 
ing the  torn  body  of  sacred  Homer '  is  something  gener- 
icaUy  different  from  the  composition  of  a  new  Iliad  out 
of  pre-existing  songs :  the  former  is  as  easy,  suitable,  and 
promising  as  the  latter  is  violent  and  gratuitous."  * 

As  for  Wolf's  objection,  that  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  are 
too  long  to  have  been  preserved  by  memory,  it  may  be 
met  by  a  simple  denial.  It  is  a  strange  objection  indeed, 
coming  from  a  man  of  Wolf's  retentive  memory.  I  do 
not  see  how  the  acquisition  of  the  two  poems  can  be 
regarded  as  such  a  very  arduous  task ;  and  if  literature 
were  as  scanty  now  as  in  Greek  antiquity,  there  are 
doubtless  many  scholars  who  would  long  since  have  had 
them  at  their  tongues'  end.  Sir  G.  C.  Lewis,  with  but 
little  conscious  effort,  managed  to  carry  in  his  head  a 
very  considerable  portion  of  Greek  and  Latin  classic 
literature ;  and  Niebuhr  (who  once  restored  from  recol- 
lection a  book  of  accounts  wliich  had  been  accidentally 
destroyed)  was  in  the  habit  of  referring  to  book  and 
chapter  of  an  ancient  author  without  consulting  his 
notes.  Nay,  there  is  Professor  Sophocles,  of  Harvard 
University,  who,  if  you  suddenly  stop  and  interrogate 
him  in  the  street,  will  tell  you  just  how  many  times  any 
given  Greek  word  occurs  in  Thukydides,  or  in  -^schyloi^ 

*  Hist.  Greece,  Vol.  11.  p.  208. 


JVVENTVS  MXJNDI. 


183 


or  in  Plato,  and  will  obligingly  rehearse  for  you  the  con- 
text. If  all  extant  copies  of  the  Homeric  poems  were 
to  be  gathered  together  and  burnt  up  to-day,  like  Don 
Quixote's  library,  or  like  those  Arabic  manuscripts  of 
which  Cardinal  Ximenes  made  a  bonfire  in  the  streets 
of  Granada,  the  poems  could  very  likely  be  reproduced 
and  orally  transmitted  for  several  generations ;  and  much 
easier  must  it  have  been  for  the  Greeks  to  preserve  these 
books,  which  their  imagination  invested  with  a  quasi- 
sanctity,  and  which  constituted  the  gi-eater  part  of  the 
literary  furniture  of  their  minds.  In  Xenophon's  time 
there  were  educated  gentlemen  at  Athens  who  could  re- 
peat both  Iliad  and  Odyssey  verbatim.  (Xenoph.  Sym- 
pos..  III.  5.)  Besides  this,  we  know  that  at  Chios  there 
was  a  company  of  bards,  known  as  Homerids,  whose 
business  it  was  to  recite  these  poems  from  memory ;  and 
from  the  edicts  of  Solon  and  the  Sikyonian  Kleisthenes 
(Herod.,  V.  67),  we  may  infer  that  the  case  was  the  same 
in  other  parts,  of  Greece.  Passages  from  the  Iliad  used 
to  be  sung  at  the  Pythian  festivals,  to  the  accompani- 
ment of  the  harp  (Athenaius,  XIV.  638),  and  in  at  least 
two  of  the  Ionic  islands  of  the  ^gsean  there  were  regular 
competitive  exhibitions  by  trained  young  men,  at  which 
prizes  were  given  to  the  best  reciter.  The  difficulty  of 
preserving  the  poems,  under  such  circumstances,  becomes 
very  insignificant ;  and  the  Wolfian  argument  quite  van- 
ishes when  we  reflect  that  it  would  have  been  no  easier 
to  preserve  a  dozen  or  twenty  short  poems  than  two  long 
ones.  Nay,  the  coherent,  orderly  arrangement  of  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  would  make  them  even  easier  to  re- 
member than  a  group  of  short  rhapsodies  not  consecu- 
tively arranged. 

When  we  come  to  interrogate  the  poems  themselves, 
we  find  in  them  quite  convincing  evidence  that  they 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


were  originally  composed  for  the  ear  alone,  and  without 
reference  to  manuscript  assistance.  They  abound  in 
catchwords,  and  in  verbal  repetitions.  The  "  Catalogue 
of  Ships,"  as  Mr.  Gladstone  has  acutely  observed,  is 
arranged  in  well-defined  sections,  in  such  a  way  that  the 
end  of  each  section  suggests  the  beginning  of  the  next 
one.  It  resembles  the  versus  memoriales  found  in  old- 
fashioned  grammars.  But  the  most  convincing  proof  of 
all  is  to  be  found  in  the  changes  which  Greek  pronimcia- 
tion  went  through  between  the  ages  of  Homer  and 
Peisistratos.  "  At  the  time  when  these  poems  were  com- 
posed, the  digamma  (or  w)  was  an  effective  consonant, 
and  figured  as  such  in  the  structure  of  the  verse  ;  at  the 
time  when  they  were  committed  to  writing,  it  had  ceased 
to  be  pronounced,  and  therefore  never  found  a  place  in 
any  of  the  manuscripts,  —  insomuch  that  the  Alexan- 
drian critics;  though  they  knew  of  its  existence  in  the 
much  later  poems  of  Alkaios  and  Sappho,  never  recog- 
nized it  in  Homer.  The  hiatus,  and  the  various  perplex- 
ities of  metre,  occasioned  by  the  loss  of  the  digamma, 
were  corrected  by  different  grammatical  stratagems.  But 
the  whole  history  of  this  lost  letter  is  very  curious,  and 
is  rendered  intelligible  only  by  the  supposition  that  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  belonged  for  a  wide  space  of  time  to 
the  memory,  the  voice,  and  the  ear  exclusively."* 

Many  of  these  facts  are  of  course  fully  recognized  by 
the  Wolfians ;  but  the  inference  drawn  from  them,  that 
the  Homeric  poems  began  to  exist  in  a  piecemeal  con- 
dition, is,  as  we  have  seen,  unnecessary.  These  poems 
may  indeed  be  compared,  in  a  certain  sense,  with  the 
early  sacred  and  epic  literature  of  the  Jews,  Indians,  and 
Teutons.  But  if  we  assign  a  plurality  of  composers  to 
the  Psalms  and  Pentateuch,  the  Mahabharata,  the  Yedas, 

♦  Grote,  Hist.  Greece,  Vol.  II.  p.  198. 


JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 


185 


and  the  Edda,  we  do  so  because  of  internal  evidence 
furnished  by  the  books  themselves,  and  not  because 
these  books  could  not  have  been  preserved  by  oral  tra- 
dition. Is  there,  then,  in  the  Homeric  poems  any  such 
internal  evidence  of  dual  or  plural  origin  as  is  furnished 
by  the  interlaced  Elohistic  and  Jehovistic  documents  of 
the  Pentateuch  ?  A  careful  investigation  will  show  that 
there  is  not.  Any  scholar  who  has  given  some  attention 
to  the  subject  can  readily  distinguish  the  Elohistic  from 
the  Jehovistic  portions  of  the  Pentateuch ;  and,  save  in 
the  case  of  a  few  sporadic  verses,  most  BibUcal  critics 
coincide  in  the  separation  which  they  make  between  the 
two.  But  the  attempts  which  have  been  made  to  break 
up  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  have  resulted  in  no  such  har- 
monious agreement.  There  are  as  many  systems  as  there 
are  critics,  and  naturally  enough.  For  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey  are  as  much  alike  as  two  peas,  and  the  resem- 
blance which  holds  between  the  two  holds  also  between 
the  different  parts  of  each  poem.  From  the  appearance 
of  the  injured  Chryses  in  the  Grecian  camp  down  to  the 
intervention  of  Athene  on  the  field  of  contest  at  Ithaka, 
we  find  in  each  book  and  in  each  paragraph  the  same 
style,  the  same  peculiarities  of  expression,  the  same  habits 
of  thought,  the  same  quite  unique  manifestations  of  the 
faculty  of  observation.  Now  if  the  style  were  common- 
place, the  observation  slovenly,  or  the  thought  trivial,  as 
is  wont  to  be  the  case  in  ballad-literature,  tliis  argument 
from  similarity  might  not  carry  with  it  much  conviction. 
But  when  we  reflect  that  throughout  the  whole  course 
of  human  history  no  other  works,  save  the  best  tragedies 
of  Shakespeare,  have  ever  been  written  which  for  com- 
bined keenness  of  observation,  elevation  of  thought,  and 
sublimity  of  style  can  compare  with  the  Homeric  poems, 
we  must  admit  that  the  argument  has  very  great  weight 


1 86  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

indeed.  Let  us  take,  for  example,  the  sixth  and  twenty^ 
fourth  books  of  the  Iliad.  According  to  the  theory  of 
Lachmann,  the  most  eminent  champion  of  the  Wolfian 
hypothesis,  these  are  by  different  authors.  Human  speech 
has  perhaps  never  been  brought  so  near  to  the  limit  of 
its  capacity  of  expressing  deep  emotion  as  in  the  scene 
between  Priam  and  Achilleus  in  the  twenty-fourth  book  ; 
while  the  interview  between  Hektor  and  Andromache  in 
the  sixth  similarly  wellnigh  exhausts  the  power  of  lan- 
guage. Now,  the  literary  critic  has  a  right  to  ask  whether 
it  is  probable  that  two  such  passages,  agreeing  perfectly 
in  turn  of  expression,  and  alike  exhibiting  the  same  un- 
approachable degree  of  excellence,  could  have  been  pro- 
duced by  two  different  authors.  And  the  physiologist 
—  with  some  inward  misgivings  suggested  by  Mr.  Gal- 
ton's  theory  that  the  Greeks  surpassed  us  in  genius  even 
as  we  surpass  the  negroes  —  has  a  right  to  ask  whether 
it  is  in  the  natural  course  of  things  for  two  such  wonder- 
ful poets,  strangely  agTeeing  in  their  minutest  psycho- 
logical characteristics,  to  be  produced  at  the  same  time. 
And  the  difficulty  thus  raised  becomes  overwhelming 
when  we  reflect  that  it  is  the  coexistence  of  not  two 
only,  but  at  least  twenty  such  geniuses  which  the  Wolf- 
ian hypothesis  requires  us  to  account  for.  That  theory 
worked  very  well  as  long  as  scholars  thoughtlessly  as- 
sumed that  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  were  analogous  to 
ballad  poetry.  But,  except  in  the  simplicity  of  the  prim- 
itive diction,  there  is  no  such  analogy.  The  power  and 
beauty  of  the  Iliad  are  never  so  hopelessly  lost  as  when 
it  is  rendered  into  the  style  of  a  modern  ballad.  One 
might  as  well  attempt  to  preserve  the  grandeur  of  the 
triumphant  close  of  Milton's  Lycidas  by  turning  it  into 
the  light  Anacreontics  of  the  ode  to  "  Eros  stung  by  a 
Bee."     The  peculiarity  of  the  Homeric  poetry,  which 


JUVENTUS  MVNDI. 


i8; 


defies  translation,  is  its  union  of  the  simplicity  charac- 
teristic of  an  early  age  with  a  sustained  elevation  of  style, 
which  can  be  explained  only  as  due  to  individual  genius. 

The  same  conclusion  is  forced  upon  us  when  we  ex- 
amine the  artistic  structure  of  these  poems.  With  regard 
to  the  Odyssey  in  particular,  Mr.  Grote  has  elaborately 
shown  that  its  structure  is  so  thoroughly  integral,  that  no 
considerable  portion  could  be  subti-acted  without  con- 
verting the  poem  into  a  more  or  less  admirable  fragment. 
The  Iliad  stands  in  a  somewhat  diflerent  position.  There 
are  unmistakable  peculiarities  in  its  structure,  which 
have  led  even  Mr.  Grote,  who  utterly  rejects  the  Wolf- 
ian  hypothesis,  to  regard  it  as  made  up  of  two  poems ; 
although  he  inclines  to  the  belief  that  the  later  poem 
was  grafted  upon  the  earlier  by  its  own  author,  by  way 
of  further  elucidation  and  expansion ;  just  as  Goethe,  in 
his  old  age,  added  a  new  part  to  "  Faust."  According  to 
Mr.  Grote,  the  Iliad,  as  originally  conceived,  was  properly 
2iYi  AcMlleis  ;  its  design  being,  as  indicated  in  the  opening 
lines  of  the  poem,  to  depict  the  wrath  of  Achilleus  and 
the  unutterable  woes  which  it  entailed  upon  the  Greeks. 
The  plot  of  this  primitive  Achilleis  is  entirely  contained 
in  Books  I.,  VIII.,  and  XI.  -  XXII. ;  and,  in  Mr.  Grote's 
opinion,  the  remaining  books  injure  the  symmetry  of  this 
plot  by  unnecessarily  prolonging  the  duration  of  the 
Wrath,  while  the  embassy  to  Achilleus,  in  the  ninth  book, 
unduly  anticipates  the  conduct  of  Agamemnon  in  the 
nineteenth,  and  is  therefore,  as  a  piece  of  bungling  work, 
to  be  referred  to  the  hands  of  an  inferior  interpolator. 
Mr.  Grote  thinks  it  probable  that  these  books,  with  the 
exception  of  the  ninth,  were  subsequently  added  by  the 
poet,  with  a  view  to  enlarging  the  original  Achilleis  into 
a  real  Iliad,  describing  the  war  of  the  Greeks  against 
Troy.    With  reference  to  this  hypothesis,  I  gladly  admit 


1 88  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

t.hat  Mr.  Grote  is,  of  all  men  now  living,  the  one  beSt 
entitled  to  a  reverential  hearing  on  almost  any  point 
connected  with  Greek  antiquity.  I^evertheless  it  seems 
to  me  that  his  theory  rests  solely  upon  imagined  difficul- 
ties which  have  no  real  existence.  I  doubt  if  any  scholar, 
reading  the  Iliad  ever  so  much,  would  ever  be  struck  by 
these  alleged  inconsistencies  of  structure,  unless  they 
were  suggested  by  some  a  priori  theory.  And  I  fear 
that  the  Wolfian  theory,  in  spite  of  Mr.  Grote's  emphatic 
rejection  of  it,  is  responsible  for  some  of  these  over-refined 
criticisms.  Even  as  it  stands,  the  Iliad  is  not  an  account 
of  the  war  against  Troy.  It  begins  in  the  tenth  year  of  the 
siege,  and  it  does  not  continue  to  the  capture  of  the  city. 
It  is  simply  occupied  with  an  episode  in  the  war,  —  with 
the  wrath  of  Achilleus  and  its  consequences,  according 
to  the  plan  marked  out  in  the  opening  lines.  The  sup- 
posed additions,  therefore,  though  they  may  have  given 
to  the  poem  a  somewhat  wider  scope,  have  not  at  any 
rate  changed  its  primitive  character  of  an  Achilleis.  To 
my  mind  they  seem  even  called  for  by  the  original 
conception  of  the  consequences  of  the  wrath.  To 
have  inserted  the  battle  at  the  ships,  in  which  Sarpedon 
breaks  down  the  wall  of  the  Greeks,  immediately  after 
the  occurrences  of  the  first  book,  would  have  been  too 
abrupt  altogether.  Zeus,  after  his  reluctant  promise  to 
Thetis,  must  not  be  expected  so  suddenly  to  exhibit  such 
fell  determination.  And  after  the  long  series  of  books 
describing  the  valorous  deeds  of  Aias,  Diomedes,  Aga- 
memnon, Odysseus,  and  Menelaos,  the  powerful  interven- 
tion of  Achilleus  appears  in  far  grander  proportions  than 
would  otherwise  be  possible.  As  for  the  embassy  to 
Achilleus,  in  the  ninth  book,  I  am  unable  to  see  how  the 
final  reconciliation  with  Agamemnon  would  be  complete 
without  it.  As  Mr.  Gladstone  well  observes,  what  Achil' 


JUVENTUS  MUNDL 


leus  wants  is  not  restitution,  but  apology;  and  Aga- 
memnon offers  no  apology  until  the  nineteenth  book.  In 
his  answer  to  the  ambassadors,  Achilleus  scornfully  re- 
jects the  proposals  which  imply  that  the  mere  return  of 
Briseis  will  satisfy  his  righteous  resentment,  unless  it  be 
accompanied  with  that  public  humiliation  to  which  cir- 
cumstances have  not  yet  compelled  the  leader  of  the 
Greeks  to  subject  himself  Achilleus  is  not  to  be  bought 
or  cajoled.  Even  the  extreme  distress  of  the  Greeks  in 
the  thirteenth  book  does  not  prevail  upon  him ;  nor  is 
there  anything  in  the  poem  to  show  that  he  ever  would 
have  laid  aside  his  wrath,  had  not  the  death  of  Patroklos 
supplied  him  with  a  new  and  wholly  unforeseen  motive. 
It  seems  to  me  that  his  entrance  into  the  battle  after  the 
death  of  his  friend  would  lose  half  its  poetic  effect,  were 
it  not  preceded  by  some  such  scene  as  that  in  the  ninth 
book,  in  which  he  is  represented  as  deaf  to  all  ordinary 
inducements.  As  for  the  two  concluding  books,  which 
Mr.  Grote  is  inclined  to  regard  as  a  subsequent  addition, 
not  necessitated  by  the  plan  of  the  poem,  I  am  at  a  loss 
to  see  how  the  poem  can  be  considered  complete  without 
them.  To  leave  the  bodies  of  Patroklos  and  Hektor 
unburied  would  be  in  the  highest  degree  shocking  to 
Greek  religious  feelings.  Remembering  the  sentence  in- 
curred, in  far  less  superstitious  times,  by  the  generals  at 
Arginusai,  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  any  conclusion 
which  left  Patroklos's  manes  unpropitiated,  and  the  mu- 
tilated corpse  of  Hektor  unransomed,  could  have  satisfied 
either  the  poet  or  his  hearers.  For  further  particulars  I 
must  refer  the  reader  to  the  excellent  criticisms  of  Mr. 
Gladstone,  and  also  to  the  article  on  "  Greek  History  and 
Legend  "  in  the  second  volume  of  Mr.  Mill's  "  Disserta- 
tions and  Discussions."  A  careful  study  of  the  arguments 
of  these  writers,  and,  above  all,  a  thorough  and  independent 


IQO  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

examination  of  the  Iliad  itself,  will,  I  believe,  convince  the 
student  that  this  great  poem  is  from  beginning  to  end  the 
couoistent  production  of  a  single  author. 

The  arguments  of  those  who  would  attribute  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey,  taken  as  wholes,  to  two  different  authors, 
rest  chiefly  upon  some  apparent  discrepancies  in  the 
mytliology  of  the  two  poems  ;  but  many  of  these  diffi- 
culties have  been  completely  solved  by  the  recent  pro- 
gress of  the  science  of  comparative  mythology.  Thus, 
for  example,  the  fact  that,  in  the  Iliad,  Hephaistos  is  called 
the  husband  of  Charis,  while  in  the  Odyssey  he  is  called 
the  husband  of  Aphrodite,  has  been  cited  even  by  Mr. 
Grote  as  evidence  that  the  two  poems  are  not  by  the 
same  author.  It  seems  to  me  that  one  such  discrepancy, 
in  the  midst  of  complete  general  agreement,  would  be 
much  better  explained  as  Cervantes  explained  his  own 
inconsistency  with  reference  to  the  stealing  of  Sancho's 
mule,  in  the  twenty-second  chapter  of  "Don  Quixote." 
But  there  is  no  discrepancy.  Aphrodite,  though  originally 
the  moon-goddess,  like  the  German  Horsel,  had  before 
Homer's  time  acquired  many  of  the  attributes  of  the 
dawn-goddess  Athene,  while  her  lunar  characteristics  had 
been  to  a  great  extent  transferred  to  Artemis  and  Per- 
sephone. In  her  renovated  character,  as  goddess  of  the 
dawn.  Aphrodite  became  identified  with  Charis,  who 
appears  in  the  Eig-Veda  as  dawn-goddess.  In  the  post- 
Homeric  mythology,  the  two  were  again  separated,  and 
Charis,  becoming  divided  in  personality,  appears  as  the 
Charites,  or  Graces,  who  were  supposed  to  be  constant 
attendants  of  Aphrodite.  But  in  the  Homeric  poems 
the  two  are  still  identical,  and  either  Charis  or  Aphrodite 
may  be  called  the  wife  of  the  fire-god,  without  incon- 
sistency. 

Thus  to  sum  up,  I  believe  that  Mr.  Gladstone  is  quite 


JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 


191 


right  in  maintaining  that  both  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  are, 
from  beginning  to  end,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  in- 
significant interpolations,  the  work  of  a  single  author, 
whom  we  have  no  ground  for  calling  by  any  other  name 
than  that  of  Homer.  I  believe,  moreover,  that  this 
author  lived  before  the  beginning  of  authentic  history, 
and  that  we  can  determine  neither  his  age  nor  his  coun- 
try with  precision.  We  can  only  decide  that  he  was  a 
Greek  who  lived  at  some  time  previous  to  the  year  900  B.C. 

Here,  however,  I  must  begin  to  part  company  with 
Mr.  Gladstone,  and  shall  henceforth  unfortunately  have 
frequent  occasion  to  differ  from  him  on  points  of  funda- 
mental importance.  For  Mr.  Gladstone  not  only  regards 
the  Homeric  age  as  strictly  within  the  limits  of  authentic 
history,  but  he  even  goes  much  further  than  this.  He 
w^ould  not  only  fix  the  date  of  Homer  positively  in  the 
twelfth  century  B.  C,  but  he  regards  the  Trojan  war  as  a 
purely  historical  event,  of  which  Homer  is  the  authentic 
historian  and  the  probable  eye-witness.  Nay,  he  even 
takes  the  word  of  the  poet  as  proof  conclusive  of  the 
historical  character  of  events  happening  several  genera- 
tions before  the  Troika,  according  to  the  legendary  chro- 
nology. He  not  only  regards  Agamemnon,  Achilleus,  and 
Paris  as  actual  personages,  but  he  ascribes  the  same  re- 
ality to  characters  like  Danaos,  Kadmos,  and  Perseus,  and 
talks  of  the  Pelopid  and  Aiolid  dynasties,  and  the  empire 
of  Minos,  with  as  much  confidence  as  if  he  were  dealing 
with  Karlings  or  Capetians,  or  with  the  epoch  of  the 
Crusades. 

It  is  disheartening,  at  the  present  day,  and  after  so  much 
has  been  finally  settled  by  writers  like  Grote,  Mommsen, 
and  Sir  G.  C.  Lewis,  to  come  upon  such  views  in  the 
work  of  a  man  of  scholarship  and  intelligence.  One 
begins  to  wonder  how  many  more  times  it  will  be  neces- 


192  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS, 

sary  to  prove  that  dates  and  events  are  of  no  historical 
value,  unless  attested  by  nearly  contemporary  evidence. 
Pausanias  and  Plutarch  were  able  men  no  doubt,  and 
Thukydides  was  a  profound  historian ;  but  what  these 
writers  thought  of  the  Herakleid  invasion,  the  age  of 
Homer,  and  the  war  of  Troy,  can  have  no  great  weight 
with  the  critical  historian,  since  even  in  the  time  of 
Thukydides  these  events  were  as  completely  obscured  by 
lapse  of  time  as  they  are  now.  There  is  no  literary  Greek 
history  before  the  age  of  Hekataios  and  Herodotos,  three 
centuries  subsequent  to  the  first  recorded  Olympiad.  A 
portion  of  this  period  is  satisfactorily  covered  by  inscrip- 
tions, but  even  these  fail  us  before  we  get  within  a  cent- 
ury of  this  earliest  ascertainable  date.  Even  the  career 
of  the  lawgiver  Lykourgos,  which  seems  to  belong  to 
the  commencement  of  the  eighth  century  B.  C,  presents 
us,  from  lack  of  anything  like  contemporary  records, 
with  many  insoluble  problems.  The  Helleno-Dorian 
conquest,  as  we  have  seen,  must  have  occurred  at  some 
time  or  other ;  but  it  evidently  did  not  occur  within  two 
centuries  of  the  earliest  known  inscription,  and  it  is 
therefore  folly  to  imagine  that  we  can  determine  its  date 
or  ascertain  the  circumstances  which  attended  it.  An- 
terior to  this  event  there  is  but  one  fact  in  Greek  an- 
tiquity directly  known  to  us,  —  the  existence  of  the 
Homeric  poems.  The  belief  that  there  was  a  Trojan  war 
rests  exclusively  upon  the  contents  of  those  poems :  there 
is  no  other  independent  testimony  to  it  whatever.  But 
the  Homeric  poems  are  of  no  value  as  testimony  to  the 
truth  of  the  statements  contained  in  them,  unless  it  can 
be  proved  that  their  author  was  either  contemporary  with 
the  Troika,  or  else  derived  his  information  from  contem- 
porary witnesses.  This  can  never  be  proved.  To  assume, 
as  Mr.  Gladstone  does,  that  Homer  lived  within  fifty 


JUVENTUS  MUNDL 


years  after  the  Troika,  is  to  make  a  purely  gratuitous 
assumption.  For  aught  the  wisest  historian  can  tell,  the 
interval  may  have  been  five  hundred  years,  or  a  thousand. 
Indeed  the  Iliad  itself  expressly  declares  that  it  is  deal- 
ing with  an  ancient  state  of  things  which  no  longer  ex- 
ists. It  is  difficult  to  see  what  else  can  be  meant  by  the 
statement  that  the  heroes  of  the  Troika  belong  to  an 
order  of  men  no  longer  seen  upon  the  earth.  (Iliad,  V.  304.) 
Most  assuredly  Achilleus  the  son  of  Thetis,  and  Sarpedon 
the  son  of  Zeus,  and  Helena  the  daughter  of  Zeus,  are  no 
ordinary  mortals,  such  as  might  have  been  seen  and  con- 
versed with  by  the  poet's  grandfather.  They  belong  to 
an  inferior  order  of  gods,  according  to  the  peculiar  an- 
thropomorphism of  tlie  Greeks,  in  which  deity  and  hu- 
manity are  so  closely  mingled  that  it  is  difficult  to  teU 
where  the  one  begins  and  the  other  ends.  Diomedes, 
single-handed,  vanquishes  not  only  the  gentle  Aphrodite, 
but  even  the  god  of  battles  himself,  the  terrible  Ares. 
Nestor  quaffs  lightly  from  a  goblet  which,  we  are  told, 
not  two  men  among  the  poet's  contemporaries  could  by 
their  united  exertions  raise  and  place  upon  a  table.  Aias 
and  Hektor  and  Aineias  luirl  enormous  masses  of  rock  as 
easily  as  an  ordinary  man  would  tlirow  a  pebble.  All  this 
shows  that  the  poet,  in  his  naive  way,  conceiving  of  these 
heroes  as  personages  of  a  remote  past,  was  endeavouring 
as  far  as  possible  to  ascribe  to  them  the  attributes  of 
superior  beings.  If  all  that  were  divine,  marvellous,  or 
superhuman  were  to  be  left  out  of  the  poems,  the  sup- 
posed historical  residue  would  hardly  be  worth  the  trou- 
ble of  saving.  As  Mr.  Cox  well  observes,  "  It  is  of  the 
very  essence  of  tlie  narrative  tliat  Paris,  who  has  deserted 
Oinone,  the  cliild  of  the  stream  Kebren,  and  before 
whom  Here,  Athene,  and  Aphrodite  had  appeared  as 
claimants  for  the  golden  apple,  steals  from  Sparta  the 

9  M 


194 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


beautiful  sister  of  the  Dioskouroi ;  that  the  chiefs  are 
summoned  together  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  avenge 
her  woes  and  wrongs ;  that  Achilleus,  the  son  of  the  sea- 
nymph  Thetis,  the  wielder  of  invincible  weapons  and  the 
lord  of  undying  horses,  goes  to  fight  in  a  quarrel  which 
is  not  his  own ;  that  his  wrath  is  roused  because  he  is 
fobbed  of  the  maiden  Briseis,  and  that  henceforth  he 
takes  no  part  in  the  strife  until  his  friend  Patroklos  has 
been  slain ;  that  then  he  puts  on  the  new  armour  which 
Thetis  brings  to  him  from  the  anvil  of  Hephaistos,  and 
goes  forth  to  win  the  victory.  The  details  are  throughout 
of  the  same  nature.  Achilleus  sees  and  converses  with 
Athene ;  Aphrodite  is  wounded  by  Diomedes,  and  Sleep 
and  Death  bear  away  the  lifeless  Sarpedon  on  their 
noiseless  wings  to  the  far-off  land  of  light."  In  view  of 
all  this  it  is  evident  that  Homer  was  not  describing,  like 
a  salaried  historiographer,  the  state  of  tilings  which  existed 
in  the  time  of  his  father  or  grandfather.  To  his  mind 
the  occurrences  which  he  described  were  those  of  a  re- 
mote, a  wonderful,  a  semi-divine  past. 

This  conclusion,  which  I  have  thus  far  supported 
merely  by  reference  to  the  Iliad  itself,  becomes  irresist- 
ible as  soon  as  we  take  into  account  the  results  obtained 
during  the  past  thirty  years  by  the  science  of  compara- 
tive m^ythology.  As  long  as  our  view  was  restricted  to 
Greece,  it  was  perhaps  excusable  that  Achilleus  and 
Paris  should  be  taken  for  exaggerated  copies  of  actual 
persons.  Since  the  day  when  Grimm  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  science  of  mythology,  all  this  has  been 
changed.  It  is  now  held  that  Achilleus  and  Paris  and 
Helena  are  to  be  found,  not  only  in  the  Iliad,  but  also  in 
the  Eig-Veda,  and  therefore,  as  mythical  conceptions, 
date,  not  from  Homer,  but  from  a  period  preceding  the 
dispersion  of  the  Aryan  nations.    The  tale  of  the  Wrath 


JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 


of  Achilleus,  far  from  originating  with  Homer,  far  from 
being  recorded  by  the  author  of  the  IHad  as  by  an  eye- 
witness, must  have  been  known  in  its  essential  features 
in  Aryana-vaedjo,  at  that  remote  epoch  when  the  Indian, 
the  Greek,  and  the  Teuton  were  as  yet  one  and  the 
same.  For  the  story  has  been  retained  by  the  three  races 
alike,  in  all  its  principal  features ;  though  the  Veda  has 
left  it  in  the  sky  where  it  originally  belonged,  while  the 
Iliad  and  the  Mbelungenlied  have  brought  it  down  to 
earth,  the  one  locating  it  in  Asia  Minor,  and  the  other  in 
Northwestern  Europe.* 

*  For  the  precise  extent  to  which  I  would  indorse  the  theory  that  the 
Iliad-myth  is  an  account  of  the  victory  of  light  over  darkness,  let  me  refer 
to  what  I  have  said  above  on  p.  134.  I  do  not  suppose  that  the  struggle 
between  light  and  darkness  was  Homer's  subject  in  the  Iliad  any  more 
than  it  was  Shakespeare's  subject  in  "Handet."  Homer's  subject  was 
the  wrath  of  the  Greek  hero,  as  Shakesj)eare's  subject  was  the  vengeance 
of  the  Danish  prince.  Nevertheless,  the  story  of  Hamlet,  when  traced 
back  to  its  Norse  original,  is  unmistakably  the  story  of  the  quarrel  be- 
tween summer  and  winter ;  and  the  moody  prince  is  as  much  a  solar 
hero  as  Odin  himself.  See  Simrock,  Die  Quellcn  des  Shakespeare,  I. 
127-133.  Of  course  Shakespeare  knew  nothing  of  this,  as  Homer  knew 
nothing  of  the  origin  of  his  Achilleus.  The  two  stories,  therefore,  are 
not  to  be  taken  as  sun-myths  in  their  present  form.  They  are  the  off- 
spring of  other  stories  which  were  sun-myths  ;  they  are  stories  which 
conform  to  the  sun-myth  type  after  the  manner  above  illustrated  in  the 
l)aper  on  Light  and  Darkness.  [Hence  there  is  nothing  unintelligible 
in  the  inconsistency  —  which  seems  to  puzzle  Max  Muller  ^Science  of 
Language,  6th  ed.  Vol.  II.  p.  516,  note  20)— of  investing  Paris  with 
many  of  the  characteristics  of  the  children  of  light.  Supposing,  as  we 
must,  that  the  primitive  sense  of  the  Iliad-myth  had  as  entirely  disap- 
peared in  the  Homeric  age,  as  the  primitive  sense  of  the  Hamlet-myth 
had  disappeared  in  the  times  of  Elizabeth,  the  fit  ground  for  wonder  is 
that  such  inconsistencies  are  not  more  numerous.]  The  physical  theory 
of  myths  will  be  properly  presented  and  comprehended,  only  when  it  is 
understood  that  Ave  accept  the  physical  derivation  of  such  stories  as  the 
Iliad-myth  in  much  the  same  way  that  we  are  bound  to  accept  the  phys- 
ical etymologies  of  such  words  as  soul,  consider,  truth,  convince,  deliber- 
ate, and  the  like.  The  late  Dr.  Gibbs  of  Yale  College,  in  his  "Philo- 
logical Studies,"  —  a  little  book  which  I  used  to  read  with  delight  when 


196 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


In  the  Eig-Veda  the  Panis  are  the  genii  of  night  and 
winter,  corresponding  to  the  Nibelungs,  or  "  Children  of 
the  Mist/'  in  the  Teutonic  legend,  and  to  the  children  of 
Nephele  (cloud)  in  the  Greek  myth  of  the  Golden  Fleece. 
The  Panis  steal  the  cattle  of  the  Sun  (Indra,  Helios, 
Herakles),  and  carry  them  by  an  unknown  route  to  a 
dark  cave  eastward.  Sarama,  the  creeping  Dawn,  is  sent 
by  Indra  to  find  and  recover  them.  The  Panis  then 
tamper  with  Sarama,  and  try  their  best  to  induce  her  to 
betray  her  solar  lord.  For  a  while  she  is  prevailed  upon 
to  dally  with  them ;  yet  she  ultimately  returns  to  give 
Indra  the  information  needful  in  order  that  he  might 
conquer  the  Panis,  just  as  Helena,  in  the  slightly  altered 
version,  ultimately  returns  to  her  western  home,  carry- 
ing with  her  the  treasures  (KTrj/juara,  Iliad,  II.  285)  of 
which  Paris  had  robbed  Menelaos.  But,  before  the  bright 
Indra  and  his  solar  heroes  can  reconquer  their  treasures 
they  must  take  captive  the  offspring  of  Brisaya,  the 
violet  light  of  morning.  Thus  Achilleus,  answering  to 
the  solar  champion  Aharyu,  takes  captive  the  daughter 
of  Brises.  But  as  the  sun  must  always  be  parted  from 
the  morning-light,  to  return  to  it  again  just  before  set- 
ting, so  Achilleus  loses  Briseis,  and  regains  her  only  just 
before  his  final  struggle.  In  similar  wise  Herakles  is 
parted  from  lole  ("the  violet  one"),  and  Sigurd  from 
Brynhild.  In  sullen  wrath  the  hero  retires  from  the 
conflict,  and  his  Myrmidons  are  no  longer  seen  on  the 
battle-field,  as  the  sun  hides  behind  the  dark  cloud  and 
his  rays  no  longer  appear  about  him.    Yet  toward  the 

a  boy,  —  describes  such  etymologies  as  "  faded  metaphors."  In  similar 
"wise,  while  refraining  from  characterizing  the  Iliad  or  the  tragedy  of 
Hamlet  —  any  more  than  I  would  characterize  Le  Juif  Errant  by  Sue, 
or  La  Maison  Forestiere  by  Erckmann-Chatrian  —  as  nature-myths,  I 
would  at  the  same  time  consider  these  poems  well  described  as  embody- 
ing "faded  nature-myths." 


JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 


197 


evening,  as  Briseis  returns,  he  appears  in  his  might, 
clothed  in  the  dazzling  armour  wrought  for  him  by  the 
fire-god  Hephaistos,  and  with  his  invincible  spear  slays 
the  great  storm-cloud,  which  during  his  absence  had 
wellnigh  prevailed  over  the  champions  of  the  daylight. 
But  his  triumph  is  short-lived ;  for  having  trampled  on 
the  clouds  that  had  opposed  him,  while  yet  crimsoned 
with  the  fierce  carnage,  the  sharp  arrow  of  the  night- 
demon  Paris  slays  him  at  the  Western  Gates.  We  have 
not  space  to  go  into  further  details.  In  Mr.  Cox's 
"  Mythology  of  the  Aryan  Nations,"  and  "  Tales  of  An- 
cient Greece,"  the  reader  will  find  the  entire  contents  of 
the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  thus  minutely  illustrated  by  com- 
parison with  the  Veda,  the  Edda,  and  the  Lay  of  the 
Nibelungs. 

Ancient  as  the  Homeric  poems  undoubtedly  are,  they 
are  modern  in  comparison  with  tlie  tale  of  Achilleus 
and  Helena,  as  here  unfolded.  The  date  of  the  en- 
trance of  the  Greeks  into  Europe  will  perhaps  never 
be  determined  ;  but  I  do  not  see  how  any  competent 
scholar  can  well  place  it  at  less  than  eight  hundred 
or  a  thousand  years  before  the  time  of  Homer.  Be- 
tween the  two  epochs  the  Greek,  Latin,  Umbrian,  and 
Keltic  languages  had  time  to  acquire  distinct  individual- 
ities. Far  earlier,  therefore,  than  the  Homeric  "  juventus 
mundi"  was  that  "youth  of  the  world,"  in  which  the 
Aryan  forefathers,  knowing  no  abstract  terms,  and  pos- 
sessing no  philosophy  but  fetichism,  deliberately  spoke 
of  the  Sun,  and  the  Dawn,  and  the  Clouds,  as  persons  or 
as  animals.  The  Veda,  though  composed  much  later 
than  this,  —  perhaps  as  late  as  the  Iliad,  —  nevertheless 
preserves  the  record  of  the  mental  life  of  this  period. 
The  Vedic  poet  is  still  dimly  aware  that  Sarama  is  the 
fickle  twilight,  and  the  Panis  the  night-demons  who  strive 


198  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

to  coax  her  from  her  allegiance  to  the  clay-god.  He 
keeps  the  scene  of  action  in  the  sky.  But  the  Homeric 
Greek  had  long  since  forgotten  that  Helena  and  Paris 
were  anything  more  than  semi -divine  mortals,  the  daugh- 
ter of  Zeus  and  the  son  of  the  Zeus-descended  Priam. 
The  Hindu  understood  that  By  axis  ("the  bright  one") 
meant  the  sky,  and  Sarama  ("the  creeping  one")  the 
dawn,  and  spoke  significantly  when  he  called  the  latter 
the  daughter  of  the  former.  But  the  Greek  could  not 
know  that  Zeus  was  derived  from  a  root  div,  "  to  shine," 
or  that  Helena  belonged  to  a  root  sar,  "  to  creep."  Pho- 
netic change  thus  helped  him  to  rise  from  fetichism  to 
polytheism.  His  nature-gods  became  thoroughly  anthro- 
pomorphic ;  and  he  probably  no  more  remembered  that 
Achilleus  originally  signified  the  sun,  than  we  remember 
that  the  word  God,  which  we  use  to  denote  the  most  vast 
of  conceptions,  originally  meant  simply  the  Storm-wind. 
Indeed,  when  the  fetichistic  tendency  led  the  Greek 
again  to  personify  the  powers  of  nature,  he  had  recourse 
to  new  names  formed  from  his  own  language.  Thus,  be- 
side Apollo  we  have  Helios ;  Selene  beside  Artemis  and 
Persephone ;  Eos  beside  Athene ;  Gaia  beside  Demeter. 
As  a  further  consequence  of  this  decomposition  and  new 
development  of  the  old  Aryan  mythology,  we  find,  as 
might  be  expected,  that  the  Homeric  poems  are  not 
always  consistent  in  their  use  of  their  mythic  materials. 
Thus,  Paris,  the  night-demon,  is  —  to  Max  Miiller's  per- 
plexity—  invested  with  many  of  the  attributes  of  the 
bright  solar  heroes.  "  Like  Perseus,  Oidipous,  Eomulus, 
and  Cyrus,  he  is  doomed  to  bring  ruin  on  his  parents ; 
like  them  he  is  exposed  in  his  infancy  on  the  hillside, 
and  rescued  by  a  shepherd."  All  the  solar  heroes  begin 
life  in  this  way.  Whether,  like  Apollo,  born  of  the 
dark  night  (Leto),  or  like  Oidipous,  of  the  violet  dawn 


JUVENTUS  MUNDL 


199 


(Tokaste),  they  are  alike  destined  to  bring  destruction  on 
tlieir  parents,  as  the  night  and  the  dawn  are  both  de- 
stroyed by  the  sun.  The  exposure  of  the  child  in  infancy 
represents  the  long  rays  of  tlie  morning-sun  resting  on 
the  hillside.  Then  Paris  forsakes  Oinone  ("the  v:inc- 
coloured  one"),  but  meets  her  again  at  the  gloaming 
when  she  lays  herself  by  his  side  amid  the  crimson 
flames  of  the  funeral  pyre.  Sarpedon  also,  a  solar  hero, 
is  made  to  fight  on  the  side  of  the  Niblungs  or  Trojans, 
attended,  by  his  friend  Glaukos  ("the  brilliant  one"). 
They  command  the  Lykians,  or  "  children  of  light "  ;  and 
with  them  comes  also  Memnon,  son  of  the  Dawn,  from 
the  fiery  land  of  the  Aithiopes,  the  favourite  haunt  of 
Zeus  and  the  gods  of  Olympos. 

The  Iliad-myth  must  therefore  have  been  current 
many  ages  before  the  Greeks  inhabited  Greece,  long  be- 
fore there  was  any  Ilion  to  be  conquered.  Nevertheless, 
this  does  not  forbid  the  supposition  that  the  legend,  as 
we  have  it,  may  have  been  formed  by  the  crystallization 
of  mythical  conceptions  about  a  nucleus  of  genuine 
tradition.  In  this  view  I  am  upheld  by  a  most  sagacious 
and  accurate  scholar,  Mr.  E.  A.  Freeman,  who  finds  in 
Carlovingian  romance  an  excellent  illustration  of  the 
problem  before  us. 

The  Charlemagne  of  romance  is  a  mythical  personage. 
He  is  supposed  to  have  been  a  Frenchman,  at  a  time 
when  neither  the  French  nation  nor  the  French  language 
can  properly  be  said  to  have  existed ;  and  he  is  repre- 
sented as  a  doughty  crusader,  although  crusading  was 
not  thought  of  until  long  after  the  Karolingian  era.  Tlie 
legendary  deeds  of  Charlemagne  are  not  conformed  to 
the  ordinary  rules  of  geography  and  chronology.  He  is 
a  myth,  and,  what  is  more,  he  is  a  solar  myth,  —  an 
avatar,  or  at  least  a  representative,  of  Odin  in  his  solar 


2CO 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


capacity.    If  in  his  case  legend  were  not  controlled  and 

rectified  by  history,  he  would  be  for  us  as  unreal  as 
Agamemnon. 

History,  however,  tells  us  that  there  was  an  Emperor 
Karl,  German  in  race,  name,  and  language,  who  was  one 
of  the  two  or  three  greatest  men  of  action  that  the  world 
has  ever  seen,  and  who  in  the  ninth  century  ruled  over  all 
Western  Europe.  To  the  historic  Karl  corresponds  in 
many  particulars  the  mythical  Charlemagne.  The  legend 
has  preserved  the  fact,  which  without  the  information 
supplied  by  history  we  might  perhaps  set  down  as  a 
fiction,  that  there  was  a  time  when  Germany,  Gaul,  Italy, 
and  part  of  Spain  formed  a  single  empire.  And,  as  Mr. 
Freeman  has  well  observed,  the  mythical  crusades  of 
Charlemagne  are  good  evidence  that  there  were  crusades, 
although  the  real  Karl  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
one. 

Now  the  case  of  Agamemnon  may  be  much  like  that 
of  Charlemagne,  except  that  we  no  longer  have  history 
to  help  us  in  rectifying  the  legend.  The  Iliad  preserves 
the  tradition  of  a  time  when  a  large  portion  of  the  islands 
and  mainland  of  Greece  were  at  least  partially  subject 
to  a  common  suzerain ;  and,  as  Mr.  Freeman  has  again 
shrewdly  suggested,  the  assignment  of  a  place  like 
Mykenai,  instead  of  Athens  or  Sparta  or  Argos,  as  the 
seat  of  the  suzerainty,  is  strong  evidence  of  the  trust- 
worthiness of  the  tradition.  It  appears  to  show  that  the 
legend  was  constrained  by  some  remembered  fact,  instead 
of  being  guided  by  general  probability.  Charlemagne's 
seat  of  government  has  been  transferred  in  romance  from 
Aachen  to  Paris ;  had  it  really  been  at  Pari? ,  says  Mr. 
Freeman,  no  one  would  have  thought  of  transferring  it  to 
Aachen.  Moreover,  the  story  of  Agamemnon,  though 
uncontrolled  by  historic  records,  is  here  at  least  sup- 


JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 


201 


ported  by  archaeologic  remains,  which  prove  Mykenai  to 
have  been  at  some  time  or  other  a  place  of  great  con- 
sequence. Then,  as  to  the  Trojan  war,  we  know  that  the 
Greeks  several  times  crossed  the  ^gcean  and  colonized 
a  large  part  of  the  seacoast  of  Asia  Minor.  In  order  to 
do  this  it  was  necessary  to  oust  from  their  homes  many 
warlike  communities  of  Lydians  and  Bithynians,  and  we 
may  be  sure  that  this  was  not  done  without  prolonged 
fighting.  There  njay  very  probably  have  been  now  and 
then  a  levy  en  masse  in  prehistoric  Greece,  as  there  was 
in  mediaeval  Europe ;  and  whether  the  great  suzerain  at 
Mykenai  ever  attended  one  or  not,  legend  would  be  sure 
to  send  him  on  sucli  an  expedition,  as  it  afterwards  sent 
Charlemagne  on  a  crusade. 

It  is  therefore  quite  possible  that  Agamemnon  and 
Menelaos  may  represent  dimly  remembered  sovereigns  or 
heroes,  with  their  characters  and  actions  distorted  to  suit 
the  exigencies  of  a  narrative  founded  upon  a  solar  myth. 
The  character  .of  the  Nibelungenlied  here  well  illustrates 
that  of  the  Iliad.  Siegfried  and  Brunhild,  Hagen  and 
Gunther,  seem  to  be  mere  personifications  of  physical 
phenomena ;  but  Etzel  and  Dietrich  are  none  other  than 
Attila  and  Theodoric  surrounded  with  mythical  attri- 
butes ;  and  even  the  conception  of  Brunhild  has  been 
supposed  to  contain  elements  derived  from  the  traditional 
recollection  of  the  historical  Brunehault.  When,  therefore, 
Achilleus  is  said,  like  a  true  sun-god,  to  have  died  by  a 
wound  from  a  sharp  instrument  in  the  only  vulnerable 
part  of  his  body,  we  may  reply  that  the  legendary  Char- 
lemagne conducts  himself  in  many  respects  like  a  solar 
deity.  If  Odysseus  detained  by  Kalypso  represents  the 
sun  ensnared  and  held  captive  by  the  pale  goddess  of 
night,  the  legend  of  Frederic  Barbarossa  asleep  in  a 
Thuringian  mountain  embodies  a  portion  of  a  kindred 


202 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


conception.  We  know  that  Charlemagne  and  Frederic 
have  been  substituted  for  Odin  ;  we  may  suspect  that 
with  the  mythical  impersonations  of  Achilleus  and  Odys- 
seus some  traditional  figures  may  be  blended.  "We  should 
remember  that  in  early  times  the  solar-myth  was  a  sort 
of  type  after  w^hich  all  wonderful  stories  would  be  pat- 
terned, and  that  to  such  a  type  tradition  also  would  be 
made  to  conform. 

In  suggesting  this  view,  we  are  not  opening  the  door  to 
Euhemerism.  If  there  is  any  one  conclusion  concern- 
ing the  Homeric  poems  which  the  labours  of  a  whole 
generation  of  scholars  may  be  said  to  have  satisfactorily 
established,  it  is  this,  that  no  trustworthy  history  can  be 
obtained  from  either  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey  merely  by 
sifting  out  the  mythical  element.  Even  if  the  poems 
contain  the  faint  reminiscence  of  an  actual  event,  that 
event  is  inextricably  wrapped  up  in  mythical  phraseology, 
so  that  by  no  cunning  of  the  scholar  can  it  be  construed 
into  history.  In  view  of  this  it  is  quite  useless  for  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  attempt  to  base  historical  conclusions  upon 
the  fact  that  Helena  is  always  called  "  Argive  Helen,"  or 
to  draw  ethnological  inferences  from  the  circumstances 
that  Menelaos,  Achilleus,  and  the  rest  of  the  Greek  heroes, 
have  yellow  hair,  while  the  Trojans  are  never  so  described. 
The  Argos  of  the  myth  is  not  the  city  of  Peloponnesos, 
though  doubtless  so  construed  even  in  Homer's  time.  It 
is  "  the  bright  land  "  where  Zeus  resides,  and  the  epithet 
is  applied  to  his  wife  Here  and  his  daughter  Helena,  as 
well  as  to  the  dog  of  Odysseus,  who  reappears  with  Sara- 
meyas  in  the  Veda.  As  for  yellow  hair,  there  is  no  evi- 
dence that  Greeks  have  ever  commonly  possessed  it ;  but 
no  other  colour  would  do  for  a  solar  hero,  and  it  accord- 
ingly characterizes  the  entire  company  of  them,  wherever 
found,  while  for  the  Trojans,  or  children  of  night,  it  is 
not  required. 


JUVEMTUS  MUNDI. 


203 


A  wider  acquaintance  with  the  results  which  have  been 
obtained  during  the  past  thirty  years  by  ihe  comparative 
study  of  languages  and  mythologies  would  have  led  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  reconsider  many  of  his  views  concerning 
the  Homeric  poems,  and  might  perhaps  have  led  him  to 
cut  out  half  or  two  thirds  of  his  book  as  hopelessly 
antiquated.  The  chapter  on  the  divinities  of  Olympos 
would  certainly  have  had  to  be  rewritten,  and  the  ridic- 
ulous theory  of  a  primeval  revelation  abandoned.  One 
can  hardly  preserve  one's  gravity  when  Mr.  Gladstone 
derives  Apollo  from  the  Hebrew  Messiah,  and  Athene 
from  the  Logos.  To  accredit  Homer  with  an  acquaintance 
with  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  which  did  not  exist  until 
the  time  of  Philo,  and  did  not  receive  its  authorized 
Christian  form  until  the  middle  of  the  second  century 
after  Christ,  is  certainly  a  strange  proceeding.  We  shall 
next  perhaps  be  invited  to  believe  that  the  authors  of 
the  Volsunga  Saga  obtained  the  conception  of  Sigurd 
from  the  "  Thirty-Nine  Articles."  It  is  true  that  these 
deities,  Athene  and  Apollo,  are  wiser,  purer,  and  more 
dignified,  on  the  whole,  than  any  of  the  other  divinities 
of  the  Homeric  Olympos.  They  alone,  as  Mr.  Gladstone 
truly  observes,  are  never  deceived  or  frustrated.  For  all 
Hellas,  Apollo  was  the  interpreter  of  futurity,  and  in  the 
maid  Athene  we  have  perhaps  the  highest  conception  of 
deity  to  which  the  Greek  mind  had  attained  in  the  early 
times.  In  the  Veda,  Athene  is  nothing  but  the  dawn ; 
but  in  the  Greek  mythology,  while  the  merely  sensuous 
glories  of  daybreak  are  assigned  to  Eos,  Athene  becomes 
the  impersonation  of  the  illuminating  and  knowledge- 
giving  light  of  the  sky.  As  the  dawn,  she  is  daughter 
of  Zeus,  the  sky,  and  in  mythic  language  springs  from 
his  forehead ;  but,  according  to  the  Greek  conception, 
this  imagery  signifies  that  she  shares,  more  than  any 


204 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


other  deity,  in  the  boundless  wisdom  of  Zeus.  The 
knowledge  of  Apollo,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  peculiar 
privilege  of  the  sun,  who,  from  his  lofty  position,  sees 
everything  that  takes  place  upon  the  earth.  Even  the 
secondary  divinity  Helios  possesses  this  prerogative  to  a 
certain  extent. 

Next  to  a  Hebrew,  Mr.  Gladstone  prefers  a  Phoenician 
ancestry  for  the  Greek  divinities.  But  the  same  lack  of 
acquaintance  with  the  old  Aryan  mythology  vitiates  all 
his  conclusions.  No  doubt  the  Greek  mythology  is  in 
some  particulars  tinged  with  Phainician  conceptions. 
Aphrodite  was  originally  a  purely  Greek  divinity,  but  in 
course  of  time  she  acquired  some  of  the  attributes  of  the 
Semitic  Astarte,  and  was  hardly  improved  by  the  change. 
Adonis  is  simply  a  Semitic  divinity,  imported  into  Greece. 
But  the  same  cannot  be  proved  of  Poseidon ;  *  far  less 
of  Hermes,  who  is  identical  with  the  Yedic  Sarameyas, 
the  rising  wind,  the  son  of  Sarama  the  dawn,  the  lying, 
tricksome  wind-god,  who  invented  music,  and  conducts 
the  souls  of  dead  men  to  the  house  of  Hades,  even  as  his 
counterpart  the  Norse  Odin  rushes  over  the  tree-tops 
leading  the  host  of  the  departed.  When  one  sees  Iris, 
the  messenger  of  Zeus,  referred  to  a  Hebrew  original, 
because  of  Jehovah's  promise  to  Noah,  one  is  at  a  loss  to 
understand  the  relationship  between  the  two  conceptions. 
Nothing  could  be  more  natural  to  the  Greeks  than  to  call 

*  I  have  no  opinion  as  to  the  nationality  of  the  Earth-shaker,  and, 
regarding  the  etymology  of  his  name,  I  believe  we  can  hardly  do  better 
than  acknowledge,  with  Mr.  Cox,  that  it  is  unknown.  It  may  well  be 
doubted,  however,  whether  much  good  is  likely  to  come  of  comparisons 
between  Poseidon,  Dagon,  Cannes,  and  Noah,  or  of  distinctions  between 
the  children  of  Shem  and  the  children  of  Ham.  See  Brown's  Poseidon  ; 
a  Link  between  Semite,  Hamite,  and  Aryan,  London,  1872, — a  book 
which  is  open  to  several  of  the  criticisms  here  directed  against  Mr.  Glad- 
Btone's  manner  of  theorizing. 


JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 


205 


the  rainbow  the  messenger  of  the  sky-god  to  earth-dwell- 
ing men ;  to  call  it  a  token  set  in  the  sky  by  Jehovah,  as 
the  Hebrews  did,  was  a  very  different  thing.  We  may 
admit  the  very  close  resemblance  between  the  myth  of 
Bellerophon  and  Anteia,  and  that  of  J oseph  and  Zuleikha ; 
but  the  fact  that  the  Greek  story  is  explicable  from  Aryan 
antecedents,  while  the  Hebrew  story  is  isolated,  might 
perhaps  suggest  the  inference  that  the  Hebrews  were  the 
borrowers,  as  they  undoubtedly  were  in  the  case  of  the 
myth  of  Eden.  Lastly,  to  conclude  that  Helios  is  an 
Eastern  deity,  because  he  reigns  in  the  East  over  Thrina- 
kia,  is  wholly  unwarranted.  Is  not  Helios  pure  Greek  for 
the  sun  ?  and  where  should  his  sacred  island  be  placed, 
if  not  in  the  East  ?  As  for  his  oxen,  which  wrought  such 
dire  destruction  to  the  comrades  of  Odysseus,  and  which 
seem  to  Mr.  Gladstone  so  anomalous,  they  are  those  very- 
same  unhappy  cattle,  the  clouds,  which  were  stolen  by 
the  storm-demon  Cacus  and  the  wind-deity  Hermes,  and 
which  furnished  endless  material  for  legends  to  the  poets 
of  the  Veda. 

But  the  whole  subject  of  comparative  mythology  seems 
to  be  terra  incognita  to  Mr.  Gladstone.  He  pursues  the 
even  tenour  of  his  way  in  utter  disregard  of  Grimm,  and 
Kuhn,  and  Br^al,  and  Dasent,  and  Burnouf  He  takes 
no  note  of  the  Eig-Veda,  nor  does  he  seem  to  realize  that 
there  was  ever  a  time  when  the  ancestors  of  the  Greeks 
and  Hindus  worshipped  the  same  gods.  Two  or  three 
times  he  cites  Max  Muller,  but  makes  no  use  of  the 
copious  data  which  might  be  gathered  from  him.  The 
only  work  which  seems  really  to  have  attracted  his  at- 
tention is  M.  Jacolliot's  very  discreditable  performance 
called  "The  Bible  in  India."  Mr.  Gladstone  does  not, 
indeed,  unreservedly  approve  of  this  book ;  but  neither 
does  he  appear  to  suspect  that  it  is  a  disgraceful  piece  of 


206 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS, 


charlatanry,  written  by  a  man  ignorant  of  the  very  rudi- 
ments of  the  subject  which  he  professes  to  handle. 

Mr.  Gladstone  is  equally  out  of  his  depth  when  he 
comes  to  treat  purely  philological  questions.  Of  the 
science  of  philology,  as  based  upon  established  laws  of 
phonetic  change,  he  seems  to  have  no  knowledge  what- 
ever. He  seems  to  think  that  two  words  are  suf&ciently 
proved  to  be  connected  when  they  are  seen  to  resemble 
each  other  in  spelling  or  in  sound.  Thus  he  quotes  approv- 
ingly a  derivation  of  the  name  Themis  from  an  assumed 
verb  them,  "  to  speak,"  whereas  it  is  notoriously  derived 
from  t10i]/jli,  as  statute  comes  ultimately  from  stare.  His 
reference  of  hieros,  "  a  priest,"  and  geron,  "  an  old  man," 
to  the  same  root,  is  utterly  baseless ;  the  one  is  the  San- 
skrit ishiras,  "  a  powerful  man,"  the  other  is  the  Sanskrit 
jar  an,  "an  old  man."  The  lists  of  words  on  pages  96- 
100  are  disfigured  by  many  such  errors;  and  indeed  the 
whole  purpose  for  which  they  are  given  shows  how  sadly 
Mr.  Gladstone's  philology  is  in  arrears.  The  theory  of 
Niebuhr  —  that  the  words  common  to  Greek  and  Latin, 
mostly  descriptive  of  peaceful  occupations,  are  Pelasgian 
—  was  serviceable  enough  in  its  day,  but  is  now  rendered 
wholly  antiquated  by  the  discovery  that  such  words  are 
Aryan,  in  the  widest  sense.  The  Pelasgian  theory  works 
very  smoothly  so  long  as  we  only  compare  the  Greek 
with  the  Latin  words,  —  as,  for  instance,  ^uyov  with  ju- 
gum ;  but  when  we  add  the  English  yoke  and  the  San- 
skrit yugam,  it  is  evident  that  we  have  got  far  out  of  the 
range  of  the  Pelasgoi.  But  what  shall  we  say  when  we 
find  Mr.  Gladstone  citing  the  Latin  thalaraus  in  sup- 
port of  this  antiquated  theory  ?  Doubtless  the  word  tha^ 
lamus  is,  or  should  be,  significative  of  peaceful  occupa- 
tions ;  but  it  is  not  a  Latin  word  at  all,  except  by 
adoption.    One  might  as  well  cite  the  word  ensemble,  to 


JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 


207 


prove  the  original  identity  or  kinship  between  English 
and  French. 

When  Mr.  Gladstone,  leaving  the  dangerous  ground  of 
pure  and  applied  philology,  confines  himseK  to  illustrat- 
ing the  contents  of  the  Homeric  poems,  he  is  always  ex- 
cellent. His  chapter  on  the  "  Outer  Geography  "  of  the 
Odyssey  is  exceedingly  interesting ;  showing  as  it  does 
how  much  may  be  obtained  from  the  patient  and  atten- 
tive study  of  even  a  single  author.  Mr.  Gladstone's 
knowledge  of  the  surface  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  so 
to  speak,  is  extensive  and  accurate.  It  is  when  he 
attempts  to  penetrate  beneath  the  surface  and  survey  the 
treasures  hidden  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  that  he 
shows  himself  unprovided  with  the  talisman  of  the  wise 
dervise,  which  alone  can  unlock  those  mysteries.  But 
modern  philology  is  an  exacting  science :  to  approach  its 
higher  problems  requires  an  amount  of  preparation  suf- 
ficient to  terrify  at  the  outset  all  but  the  boldest ;  and  a 
'  man  who  ha&  had  to  regulate  taxation,  and  make  out 
financial  statements,  and  lead  a  political  party  in  a  great 
nation,  may  weU  be  excused  for  ignorance  of  philology. 
It  is  difficult  enough  for  those  who  have  Little  else  to  do 
but  to  pore  over  treatises  on  phonetics,  and  thumb  their 
lexicons,  to  keep  fully  abreast  with  the  latest  views  in 
linguistics.  In  matters  of  detail  one  can  hardly  ever 
broach  a  new  hypothesis  without  misgivings  lest  some- 
body, in  some  weekly  journal  published  in  Germany, 
may  just  have  anticipated  and  refuted  it.  Yet  while  Mr. 
Gladstone  may  be  excused  for  being  unsound  in  philol- 
ogy, it  is  far  less  excusable  that  he  should  sit  down  to 
write  a  book  about  Homer,  abounding  in  philological 
statements,  without  the  slightest  knowledge  of  what  has 
been  achieved  in  that  science  for  several  years  past.  In 
spite  of  aU  drawbacks,  however,  his  book  shows  an  abid- 


208 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


ing  taste  for  scholarly  pursuits,  and  therefore  deserves  a 
certain  kind  of  praise.  I  hope,  —  though  just  now  the 
idea  savours  of  the  ludicrous,  —  that  the  day  may  some 
time  arrive  when  our  Congressmen  and  Secretaries  of  the 
Treasury  will  spend  their  vacations  in  writing  books 
about  Greek  antiquities,  or  in  illustrating  the  meaning 
of  Homeric  phrases. 

Julyt  1870. 


THE  FUIMEFAL  OHOST-WOBLD. 


209 


VII 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD. 

0  earnest  student  of  human  culture  can  as  yet  have 


-L 1  forgotten  or  wholly  outlived  the  feeling  of  delight 
awakened  by  the  first  perusal  of  Max  Miiller's  brilliant 
"  Essay  on  Comparative  Mythology,"  —  a  work  in  which 
the  scienafic  principles  of  myth-interpretation,  though 
not  newly  announced,  were  at  least  brought  home  to  the 
reader  with  such  an  amount  of  fresh  and  striking  con- 
crete illustration  as  they  had  not  before  received.  Yet 
it  must  have  occurred  to  more  than  one  reader  that,  while 
the  analyses  of  myths  contained  in  this  noble  essay  are 
in  the  main  sound  in  principle  and  correct  in  detail, 
nevertheless  ^  the  author's  theory  of  the  genesis  of  myth 
is  expressed,  and  most  likely  conceived,  in  a  way  that  is 
very  suggestive  of  carelessness  and  fallacy.  There  are 
obvious  reasons  for  doubting  whether  the  existence  of 
mythology  can  be  due  to  any  "  disease,"  abnormity,  or 
hypertrophy  of  metaphor  in  language  ;  and  the  criticism 
at  once  arises,  that  with  the  myth-makers  it  was  not  so 
much  the  character  of  the  expression  which  originated  the 
thought,  as  it  was  the  thought  which  gave  character  to  the 
expression.  It  is  not  that  the  early  Aryans  were  myth- 
makers  because  their  language  abounded  in  metaphor ;  it 
is  that  the  Aryan  mother-tongue  abounded  in  metaphor 
because  the  men  and  women  who  spoke  it  were  myth- 
makers.  And  they  were  myth-makers  because  they  had 
nothing  but  the  phenomena  of  human  will  and  effort 
with  which  to  compare  objective  phenomena.  Therefore 


2IO 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


it  was  that  they  spoke  of  the  sun  as  an  unwearied  voy- 
ager or  a  matchless  archer,  and  classified  inanimate  no 
less  than  animate  objects  as  masculine  and  feminine. 
Max  Muller's  way  of  stating  his  theory,  both  in  this  Essay 
and  in  his  later  Lectures,  affords  one  among  several  in- 
stances of  the  curious  manner  in  which  he  combines  a 
marvellous  penetration  into  the  significance  of  details  with 
a  certain  looseness  of  general  conception.*  The  princi- 
ples of  philological  interpretation  are  an  indispensable 
aid  to  us  in  detecting  the  hidden  meaning  of  many  a 
legend  in  which  the  powers  of  nature  are  represented  in 
the  guise  of  living  and  thinking  persons ;  but  before  we  can 
get  at  the  secret  of  the  myth-making  tendency  itself,  we 
must  leave  philology  and  enter  upon  a  psychological 
study.  We  must  inquire  into  the  characteristics  of  that 
primitive  style  of  thinking  to  which  it  seemed  quite 
natural  that  the  sun  should  be  an  unerring  archer,  and 
the  thunder-cloud  a  black  demon  or  gigantic  robber  find- 

*  *'  The  expression  that  the  Erinys,  Saranyu,  the  Dawn,  finds  out  the 
criminal,  was  originally  quite  free  from  mythology  ;  it  meant  no  more 
than  that  crime  would  be  brought  to  light  some  day  or  other.  It  became 
mythological,  however,  as  soon  as  the  etymological  meaning  of  Erinys 
was  forgotten,  and  as  soon  as  the  Dawn,  a  portion  of  time,  assumed  the 
rank  of  a  personal  being."  —  Science  of  Language,  6th  edition,  II.  615, 
This  paragraph,  in  which  the  italicizing  is  mine,  contains  Max  MUller's 
theory  in  a  nutshell.  It  seems  to  me  wholly  at  variance  with  the  facts 
of  history.  The  facts  concerning  primitive  culture  which  are  to  be  cited 
in  this  paper  will  show  that  the  case  is  just  the  other  way.  Instead  of 
the  expression  "  Erinys  finds  the  criminal"  being  originally  a  metaphor, 
it  was  originally  a  literal  statement  of  what  was  believed  to  be  fact. 
The  Dawn  (not  "a  portion  of  time,"  (!)  but  the  rosy  flush  of  the  morn- 
ing sky)  was  originally  regarded  as  a  real  person.  Primitive  men,  strictly 
speaking,  do  not  talk  in  metaphors  ;  they  believe  in  the  literal  truth  of 
their  similes  and  personifications,  from  which,  by  survival  in  culture,  our 
poetic  metaphors  are  lineally  descended.  Homer's  allusion  to  a  rolling 
stone  as  iaatjfievos  or  *'  yearning"  (to  keep  on  rolling),  is  to  us  a  mere 
figurative  expression  ;  but  to  the  savage  it  is  the  deseription:  of  a  fa«t. 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD. 


211 


ing  his  richly  merited  doom  at  the  hands  of  the  indignant 
Lord  of  Light. 

Amonsj  recent  treatises  which  have  dealt  with  this 
interesting  problem,  we  shall  find  it  advantageous  to 
give  especial  attention  to  Mr.  Tylor's  "Primitive  Cult- 
ure," *  one  of  the  few  erudite  works  which  are  at  once 
truly  great  and  thoroughly  entertaining.  The  learning 
displayed  in  it  would  do  credit  to  a  German  specialist, 
both  for  extent  and  for  minuteness,  while  the  orderly  ar- 
rangement of  the  arguments  and  the  elegant  lucidity  of 
the  style  are  such  as  we  are  accustomed  to  expect  from 
French  essay- writers.  And  what  is  still  more  admirable 
is  the  way  in  which  the  enthusiasm  characteristic  of 
a  genial  and  original  speculator  is  tempered  by  the 
patience  and  caution  of  a  cool-headed  critic.  Patience 
and  caution  are  nowhere  more  needed  than  in  writers 
who  deal  with  mythology  and  with  primitive  religious 
ideas ;  but  these  quaUties  are  too  seldom  found  in  com- 
bination with  the  speculative  boldness  which  is  required 
when  fresh  theories  are  to  be  framed  or  new  paths  of 
investigation  opened.  The  state  of  mind  in  which  the 
explaining  powers  of  a  favourite  theory  are  fondly  con- 
templated is,  to  some  extent,  antagonistic  to  the  state  of 
mind  in  which  facts  are  seen,  with  the  eye  of  impartial 
criticism,  in  all  their  obstinate  and  uncompromising  real- 
ity. To  be  able  to  preserve  the  balance  between  the  two 
opposing  tendencies  is  to  give  evidence  of  the  most  con- 
summate scientific  training.  It  is  from  the  want  of  such 
a  balance  that  the  recent  great  work  of  Mr.  Cox  is  at 
times  so  unsatisfactory.  It  may,  I  fear,  seem  ill-natured 
to  say  so,  but  the  eagerness  with  which  Mr.  Cox  waylays 

*  Primitive  Culture  :  Researches  into  the  Development  of  Mythology, 
Philosophy,  Religion,  Art,  and  Custom.  By  Edward  B.  Tylor.  2  vols, 
&V0.    London.  1871. 


212 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


every  available  illustration  of  the  physical  theory  of  the 
origin  of  myths  has  now  and  then  the  curious  effect  of 
weakening  the  reader's  conviction  of  the  soundness  of 
the  theory.  For  my  own  part,  though  by  no  means  in- 
clined to  waver  in  adherence  to  a  doctrine  once  adopted 
on  good  grounds,  I  never  felt  so  much  like  rebelling 
against  the  mythologic  supremacy  of  the  Sun  and  the 
Dawn  as  when  reading  Mr.  Cox's  volumes.  That  Mr. 
Tylor,  while  defending  the  same  fundamental  theory, 
awakens  no  such  rebellious  feelings,  is  due  to  his  clear 
perception  and  realization  of  the  fact  that  it  is  impossible 
to  generalize  in  a  single  formula  such  many-sided  corre- 
spondences as  those  which  primitive  poetry  and  philosophy 
have  discerned  between  the  life  of  man  and  the  life  of 
outward  nature.  Whoso  goes  roaming  up  and  down  the 
elf-land  of  popular  fancies,  with  sole  intent  to  resolve 
each  episode  of  myth  into  some  answering  physical  event, 
his  only  criterion  being  outward  resemblance,  cannot  be 
trusted  in  his  conclusions,  since  wherever  he  turns  for 
evidence  he  is  sure  to  find  something  that  can  be  made 
to  serve  as  such.  As  Mr.  Tylor  observes,  no  household 
legend  or  nursery  rhyme  is  safe  from  his  hermeneutics. 
"Should  he,  for  instance,  demand  as  his  property  the 
nursery  'Song  of  Sixpence,'  his  claim  would  be  easily 
established,  —  obviously  the  four-and-twenty  blackbirds 
are  the  four-and-twenty  hours,  and  the  pie  that  holds 
them  is  the  underlying  earth  covered  with  the  overarch- 
ing sky,  —  how  true  a  touch  of  nature  it  is  that  when  the 
pie  is  opened,  that  is,  when  day  breaks,  the  birds  begin 
to  sing ;  the  King  is  the  Sun,  and  his  counting  out  his 
money  is  pouring  out  the  sunshine,  the  golden  shower  of 
Danae;  the  Queen  is  the  Moon,  and  her  transparent 
honey  the  moonlight ;  the  Maid  is  the  '  rosy-fingered ' 
Dawn,  who  rises  before  the  Sun,  her  master,  and  hangs 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD. 


213 


out  the  clouds,  his  clothes,  across  the  sky ;  the  particular 

blackbird,  who  so  tragically  ends  the  tale  by  snipping  off 
her  nose,  is  the  hour  of  sunrise."  In  all  this  interpreta- 
tion there  is  no  a  priori  improbability,  save,  perhaps,  in 
its  unbroken  symmetry  and  completeness.  Tliat  some 
points,  at  least,  of  the  story  are  thus  derived  from  antique 
interpretations  of  physical  events,  is  in  harmony  with  all 
that  we  know  concerning  nursery  rhymes.  In  short,  "  the 
time-honoured  rhyme  really  wants  but  one  thing  to 
prove  it  a  sun-myth,  that  one  thing  being  a  proof  by 
some  argument  more  valid  tlian  analogy."  The  character 
of  the  argument  which  is  lacking  may  be  illustrated  by 
a  reference  to  the  rhyme  about  Jack  and  Jill,  explained 
some  time  since  in  the  paper  on  "  The  Origins  of  Folk- 
Lore."  If  the  argument  be  thought  valid  wliich  sliows 
these  ill-fated  children  to  be  the  spots  on  the  moon,  it  is 
because  the  proof  consists,  not  in  the  analogy,  which  is 
in  this  case  not  especially  obvious,  but  in  the  fact  that 
in  the  Edda,  and  among  ignorant  Swedish  peasants  of 
our  own  day,  the  story  of  Jack  and  Jill  is  actually  given 
as  an  explanation  of  the  moon-spots.  To  the  neglect  of 
this  distinction  between  what  is  plausible  and  what  is 
supported  by  direct  evidence,  is  due  much  of  the  crude 
speculation  which  encumbers  the  study  of  myths. 

It  is  when  Mr.  Tylor  merges  the  study  of  mythology 
into  the  wider  inquiry  into  the  characteristic  features  of 
the  mode  of  thinking  in  which  myths  originated,  that  we 
can  best  appreciate  the  practical  value  of  that  union  of 
speculative  boldness  and  critical  sobriety  which  ever}^- 
where  distinguishes  him.  It  is  pleasant  to  meet  with  a 
writer  who  can  treat  of  primitive  religious  ideas  without 
losing  his  head  over  allegory  and  syr^bolism,  and  who 
duly  realizes  the  fact  that  a  savage  is  not  a  rabbinical 
commentator,  or  a  cabaliet,  or  a  Rosicruoian,  but  a  plain 


214 


MYTHS  AND  3IYTH-MAKERS. 


man  who  draws  conclusions  like  ourselves,  though  with 
feeble  intelligence  and  scanty  knowledge.  The  mystic 
allegory  with  which  such  modern  writers  as  Lord  Bacon 
have  invested  the  myths  of  antiquity  is  no  part  of  their 
original  clothing,  but  is  rather  the  late  product  of  a  style 
of  reasoning  from  analogy  quite  similar  to  that  v/hich  we 
shall  perceive  to  have  guided  the  myth-makers  in  their 
primitive  constructions.  The  myths  and  customs  and 
beliefs  which,  in  an  advanced  stage  of  culture,  seem 
meaningless  save  when  characterized  by  some  quaintly 
wrought  device  of  symbolic  explanation,  did  not  seem 
meaningless  in  the  lower  culture  which  gave  birth  to 
them.  Myths,  like  words,  survive  their  primitive  mean- 
ings. In  the  early  stage  the  myth  is  part  and  parcel  of 
the  current  mode  of  philosophizing ;  the  explanation 
which  it  offers  is,  for  the  time,  the  natural  one,  the  one 
which  would  most  readily  occur  to  any  one  thinking  on 
the  theme  with  which  the  myth  is  concerned.  But  by 
and  by  the  mode  of  philosophizing  has  changed ;  expla- 
nations which  formerly  seemed  quite  obvious  no  longer 
occur  to  any  one,  but  the  myth  has  acquired  an  indepen- 
dent substantive  existence,  and  continues  to  be  handed 
down  from  parents  to  children  as  something  true,  though 
no  one  can  tell  why  it  is  true.  Lastly,  the  myth  itself 
gradually  fades  from  remembrance,  often  leaving  behind 
it  some  utterly  unintelligible  custom  or  seemingly  absurd 
superstitious  notion.  For  example, — to  recur  to  an  illus- 
tration already  cited  in  a  previous  paper,  —  it  is  still 
beheved  here  and  there  by  some  venerable  granny  that  it 
is  wicked  to  kill  robins;  but  he  who  should  attribute 
the  belief  to  the  old  granny's  refined  sympathy  with  all 
sentient  existence,  would  be  making  one  of  the  blun- 
ders which  are  always  committed  by  those  who  reason 
a  ^priori  about  historical  matters  without  following  the 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD.  21 5 


historical  method.  At  an  earlier  date  the  superstition 
existed  in  the  shape  of  a  beKef  that  the  killing  of  a 
robin  portends  some  calamity ;  in  a  still  earlier  form  the 
calamity  is  specified  as  death ;  and  again,  still  earlier,  as 
death  by  lightning.  Another  step  backward  reveals  that 
the  dread  sanctity  of  the  robin  is  owing  to  the  fact  that 
he  is  the  bird  of  Thor,  the  lightning  god  ;  and  finally  we 
reach  that  primitive  stage  of  philosophizing  in  which  the 
lightning  is  explained  as  a  red  bird  dropping  from  its 
beak  a  worm  which  cleaveth  the  rocks.  Again,  the  belief 
that  some  harm  is  sure  to  come  to  him  who  saves  the  life 
of  a  drowning  man,  is  unintelligible  until  it  is  regarded 
as  a  case  of  survival  in  culture.  In  the  older  form  of  the 
superstition  it  is  held  that  the  rescuer  will  sooner  or  later 
be  drowned  himself ;  and  thus  we  pass  to  the  fetichistic 
interpretation  of  drowning  as  the  seizing  of  the  unfortu- 
nate person  by  the  water-spirit  or  nixy,  who  is  naturally 
angry  at  being  deprived  of  his  victim,  and  henceforth 
bears  a  special  grudge  against  the  bold  mortal  who  has 
thus  dared  to  frustrate  him. 

The  interpretation  of  the  lightning  as  a  red  bird,  and 
of  drowning  as  the  work  of  a  smiling  but  treacherous 
fiend,  are  parts  of  that  primitive  philosophy  of  nature  in 
which  all  forces  objectively  existing  are  conceived  as 
identical  with  the  force  subjectively  known  as  volition. 
It  is  this  philosophy,  currently  known  as  fetichism,  but 
treated  by  Mr,  Tylor  under  the  somewhat  more  compre- 
hensive name  of  "  animism,"  which  we  must  now  consider 
in  a  few  of  its  most  conspicuous  exemplifications.  When 
we  have  properly  characterized  some  of  the  processes 
which  the  untrained  mind  habitually  goes  through,  we 
shall  have  incidentally  arrived  at  a  fair  solution  of  the 
genesis  of  mythology. 

Let  us  first  note  the  ease  with  which  the  barbaric  or 


2l6 


MVTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


uncultivated  mind  reaches  all  manner  of  apparently  fan- 
ciful conclusions  through  reckless  reasoning  from  analogy. 
It  is  through  the  operation  of  certain  laws  of  ideal  as- 
sociation that  all  human  thinking,  that  of  the  highest  as 
well  as  that  of  the  lowest  minds,  is  conducted  :  the  dis- 
covery of  the  ]^w  of  gravitation,  as  well  as  the  invention 
of  such  a  superstition  as  the  Hand  of  Glory,  is  at  bottom 
but  a  case  of  association  of  ideas.  The  difference  between 
the  scientific  and  the  mythologic  inference  consists  solely 
in  the  number  of  checks  which  in  the  former  case  combine 
to  prevent  any  other  than  the  true  conclucion  from  being 
framed  into  a  proposition  to  which  the  mind  assents. 
Countless  accumulated  experiences  have  tauglit  the  modern 
that  there  are  many  associations  of  ideas  w^hich  do  not 
correspond  to  any  actual  connection  of  cause  and  effect  in 
the  world  of  phenomena  ;  and  he  has  learned  accordingly 
to  apply  to  his  newly  framed  notions  the  rigid  test  of  ver- 
ification. Besides  which  the  same  accumulation  of  ex- 
periences has  built  up  an  organized  structure  of  ideal  asso- 
ciations into  which  only  the  less  extravagant  newly  framed 
notions  have  any  chance  of  fitting.  The  primitive  man,  or 
the  modern  savage  who  is  to  some  extent  his  counterpart, 
must  reason  without  the  aid  of  these  multifarious  checks. 
That  immense  mass  of  associations  which  answer  to  what 
are  called  physical  laws,  and  which  in  the  mind  of  the 
civilized  modern  have  become  almost  organic,  have  not 
been  formed  in  the  mind  of  the  savage  ;  nor  has  he 
learned  the  necessity  of  experimentally  testing  any  of 
his  newly  framed  notions,  save  perhaps  a  few  of  the 
commonest.  Consequently  there  is  nothing  but  super- 
ficial analogy  to  guide  the  course  of  his  thought  hither 
or  thither,  and  the  conclusions  at  which  he  arrives  will 
be  determined  by  associations  of  ideas  occurring  appar- 
ently at  haphazard.    Hence  the  quaint  or  grotesque  fan^ 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD. 


217 


cies  with  which  European  and  barbaric  folk-lore  is  filled, 
in  the  framing  of  which  the  myth-maker  was  but  reason- 
ing according  to  the  best  methods  at  his  command.  To 
this  simplest  class,  in  which  the  association  of  ideas  is 
determined  by  mere  analogy,  belong  such  cases  as  that 
of  the  Zulu,  who  chews  a  piece  of  wood  in  order  to  soften 
the  heart  of  the  man  with  whom  he  is  about  to  trade 
for  cows,  or  the  Hessian  lad  who  "  thinks  he  may  escape 
the  conscription  by  carrying  a  baby-girl's  cap  in  his 
pocket,  —  a  symbolic  way  of  repudiating  manhood."  * 
A  similar  style  of  thinking  underlies  the  mediaeval 
necromancer's  practice  of  making  a  waxen  image  of  his 
enemy  and  shooting  at  it  with  arrows,  in  order  to  bring 
about  the  enemy's  death ;  as  also  the  case  of  the  magic 
rod,  mentioned  in  a  previous  paper,  by  means  of  which 
a  sound  thrashing  can  be  administered  to  an  absent  foe 
through  the  medium  of  an  old  coat  which  is  imagined  to 
cover  him.  The  principle  involved  here  is  one  which  is 
doubtless  familiar  to  most  children,  and  is  closely  akin  to 
that  which  Irving  so  amusingly  illustrates  in  his  doughty 
general  who  struts  through  a  field  of  cabbages  or  corn- 
stalks, smiting  them  to  earth  with  his  cane,  and 
imagining  himself  a  hero  of  chivalry  conquering  single- 
handed  a  host  of  caitiff  ruffians.  Of  like  origin  are  the 
fancies  that  the  breaking  of  a  mirror  heralds  a  death  in 
the  family,  —  probably  because  of  the  destruction  of  the 
reflected  human  image ;  that  the  "  hair  of  the  dog  that 
bit  you"  will  prevent  hydrophobia  if  laid  upon  the 
wound ;  or  that  the  tears  shed  by  human  victims,  sacri- 
ficed to  mother  earth,  will  bring  down  showers  upon  the 
land.  Mr.  Tylor  cites  Lord  Chesterfield's  remark,  "  that 
the  king  had  been  ill,  and  that  people  generally  expected 
the  illness  to  be  fatal,  because  the  oldest  lion  in  the 
♦  Tylor,  op.  cit.  I.  107. 

10 


2l8 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


Tower,  about  the  king's  age,  had  just  died.  'So  wild 
and  capricious  is  the  human  mind/  "  observes  the  elegant 
letter-writer.  But  indeed,  as  Mr.  Tylor  justly  remarks, 
"  the  thought  was  neither  wild  nor  capricious ;  it  was 
simply  such  an  argument  from  analogy  as  the  educated 
world  has  at  length  painfully  learned  to  be  worthless,  but 
which,  it  is  not  too  much  to  declare,  would  to  this  day 
carry  considerable  weight  to  the  minds  of  four  fifths  of  the 
human  race."  Upon  such  symbolism  are  based  most  of 
the  practices  of  divination  and  the  great  pseudo-science 
of  astrology.  "  It  is  an  old  story,  that  when  two  brothers 
were  once  taken  ill  together,  Hippokrates,  the  physician, 
concluded  from  the  coincidence  that  they  were  twins,  but 
Poseidonios,  the  astrologer,  considered  rather  that  they 
were  born  under  the  same  constellation;  we  may  add 
that  either  argument  would  be  thought  reasonable  by  a 
savage."  So  when  a  Maori  fortress  is  attacked,  the  be- 
siegers and  besieged  look  to  see  if  Venus  is  near  the 
moon.  The  moon  represents  the  fortress;  and  if  it 
appears  below  the  companion  planet,  the  besiegers  will 
carry  the  day,  otherwise  they  will  be  repulsed.  Equally 
primitive  and  childlike  was  Eousseau's  train  of  thought 
on  the  memorable  day  at  Les  Charmettes  when,  being 
distressed  with  doubts  as  to  the  safety  of  his  soul,  he 
sought  to  determine  the  point  by  throwing  a  stone  at  a 
tree.  "  Hit,  sign  of  salvation  ;  miss,  sign  of  damnation  ! " 
The  tree  being  a  large  one  and  very  near  at  hand,  the 
result  of  the  experiment  was  reassuring,  and  the  young 
philosopher  walked  away  without  further  misgivings  con- 
cerning this  momentous  question.* 

When  the  savage,  whose  highest  intellectual  efforts 
result  only  in  speculations  of  this  childHke  character,  is 

*  Rousseau,  Confessions,  I.  vi.  For  further  illustration,  see  especially 
the  note  on  the  ** doctrine  of  signatures,"  supra,  p.  66. 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD. 


219 


<;onfronted  with  the  phenomena  of  dreams,  it  is  easy  to 
see  what  he  will  make  of  them.  His  practical  knowledge 
of  psychology  is  too  limited  to  admit  of  his  distinguish- 
ing between  the  sohdity  of  waking  experience  and  what 
we  may  call  the  unsubstantialness  of  the  dream.  He 
may,  indeed,  have  learned  that  the  dream  is  not  to  be 
relied  on  for  telling  the  truth  ;  the  Zulu,  for  example, 
has  even  reached  the  perverse  triumph  of  critical  logic 
achieved  by  our  own  Aryan  ancestors  in  the  saying  that 
"  dreams  go  by  contraries."  But  the  Zulu  has  not  learned, 
nor  had  the  primeval  Aryan  learned,  to  disregard  the 
utterances  of  the  dream  as  being  purely  subjective  phe- 
nomena. To  the  mind  as  yet  untouched  by  modern  cult- 
ure, the  visions  seen  and  the  voices  heard  in  sleep  possess 
as  much  objective  reality  as  the  gestures  and  shouts  of 
waking  hours.  When  the  savage  relates  his  dream,  he 
tells  how  he  saw  certain  dogs,  dead  warriors,  or  demons 
last  night,  the  implication  being  that  the  things  seen 
were  objects  external  to  himself.  As  Mr.  Spencer  ob- 
serves, "his  rude  language  fails  to  state  the  difference 
between  seeing  and  dreaming  that  he  saw,  doing  and 
dreaming  that  he  did.  From  this  inadequacy  of  his 
language  it  not  only  results  that  he  cannot  truly  represent 
this  difference  to  others,  but  also  that  he  cannot  truly 
represent  it  to  himself.  Hence  in  the  absence  of  an 
alternative  interpretation,  his  belief,  and  that  of  those  to 
whom  he  tells  his  adventures,  is  that  his  other  self  has 
been  away  and  came  back  when  he  awoke.  And  this 
belief,  which  we  find  among  various  existing  savage 
tribes,  we  equally  find  in  the  traditions  of  the  early 
civilized  races."  * 

Let  us  consider,  for  a  moment,  this  assumption  of  the 

*  Spencer,  Recent  Discussions  in  Science,  etc. ,  p.  36,  ' '  The  Origin  of 
Animal  Worship." 


Z20 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


other  self,  for  upon  this  is  based  the  great  mass  of  crude 
inference  which  constitutes  the  primitive  man's  philoso- 
phy of  nature.  The  hypothesis  of  the  other  self,  which 
serves  to  account  for  the  savage's  wanderings  during 
sleep  in  strange  lands  and  among  strange  people,  serves 
also  to  account  for  the  presence  in  his  dreams  of  parents, 
comrades,  or  enemies,  known  to  be  dead  and  buried.  The 
other  self  of  the  dreamer  meets  and  converses  with  the 
other  selves  of  his  dead  brethren,  joins  with  them  in  the 
hunt,  or  sits  down  with  them  to  the  wild  cannibal  ban- 
quet. Thus  arises  the  belief  in  an  ever-present  world  of 
souls  or  ghosts,  a  belief  which  the  entire  experience  of 
uncivilized  man  goes  to  strengthen  and  expand.  The 
existence  of  some  tribe  or  tribes  of  savages  wholly  desti- 
tute of  religious  belief  has  often  been  hastily  asserted 
and  as  often  called  in  question.  But  there  is  no  question 
that,  while  many  savages  are  unable  to  frame  a  concep- 
tion so  general  as  that  of  godhood,  on  the  other  hand  no 
tribe  has  ever  been  found  so  low  in  the  scale  of  intel- 
ligence as  not  to  have  framed  the  conception  of  ghosts  or 
spiritual  personalities,  capable  of  being  angered,  propi- 
tiated, or  conjured  with.  Indeed  it  is  not  improbable 
a  priori  that  the  original  inference  involved  in  the  notion 
of  the  other  self  may  be  sufficiently  simple  and  obvious 
to  fall  within  the  capacity  of  animals  even  less  intel- 
ligent than  uncivilized  man.  An  authentic  case  is  on 
record  of  a  Skye  terrier  who,  being  accustomed  to  obtain 
favours  from  his  master  by  sitting  on  his  haunches,  will 
also  sit  before  his  pet  india-rubber  ball  placed  on  the 
chimney-piece,  evidently  beseeching  it  to  jump  down 
and  play  with  him.*    Such  a  fact  as  this  is  quite  in 

*  See  Nature,  Vol.  VI.  p.  262,  August  1,  1872.  The  circumstances 
narrated  are  such  as  to  exclude  the  supposition  that  the  sitting  up  is  in- 
tended to  attract  the  master's  attention.    The  dog  has  frequently  been 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD. 


221 


hannony  with  Auguste  Comte's  suggestion  that  such  in- 
telligent animals  as  dogs,  apes,  and  elephants  may  be 
capable  of  forming  a  few  fetichistic  notions.  The  be- 
haviour of  the  terrier  here  rests  upon  the  assumption 
that  the  ball  is  open  to  the  same  sort  of  entreaty  which 
prevails  with  the  master ;  which  implies,  not  that  the 
wistful  brute  accredits  the  ball  with  a  soul,  but  that  in 
his  mind  the  distinction  between  life  and  inanimate 
existence  has  never  been  thoroughly  established.  Just 
this  confusion  between  things  living  and  things  not  liv- 
ing is  present  throughout  the  whole  philosophy  of  feti- 
chism ;  and  the  confusion  between  things  seen  and  things 
dreamed,  which  suggests  the  notion  of  another  self,  be- 
longs to  this  same  twilight  stage  of  intelligence  in  which 
primeval  man  has  not  yet  clearly  demonstrated  his  im- 
measurable superiority  to  the  brutes.* 

seen  trying  to  soften  the  heart  of  the  ball,  while  observed  unawares  by 

his  master. 

*  '  *  We  would,^  however,  commend  to  Mr.  Fiske's  attention  Mr.  Mark 
Twain's  dog,  who  '  could  n't  be  depended  on  for  a  special  providence,' 
as  being  nearer  to  the  actual  dog  of  every-day  life  than  is  the  Skye  ter- 
rier mentioned  by  a  certain  correspondent  of  Nature,  to  whose  letter 
Mr.  Fiske  refers.  The  terrier  is  held  to  have  had  '  a  few  fetichistic  no- 
tions,' because  he  was  found  standing  up  on  his  hind  legs  in  front  of  a 
mantel-piece,  upon  which  lay  an  india-rubber  ball  with  which  he  wished 
to  play,  but  which  he  could  not  reach,  and  wliich,  says  the  letter-writer, 
he  was  evidently  beseeching  to  come  down  and  play  with  him.  We 
consider  it  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that  a  dog  who  had  been  drilled 
into  a  belief  that  standing  upon  his  hind  legs  was  very  pleasing  to  his 
master,  and  who,  therefore,  had  accustomed  himself  to  stand  on  his 
hind  legs  whenever  he  desired  anything,  and  whose  usual  way  of  get- 
ting what  he  desired  was  to  induce  somebody  to  get  it  for  him,  may 
have  stood  up  in  front  of  the  mantel-piece  rather  from  force  of  habit  and 
eagerness  of  desire  than  because  he  had  any  fetichistic  notions,  or  ex- 
pected the  india-rubber  ball  to  listen  to  his  supplications.  We  admit, 
however,  to  avoid  polemical  controversy,  that  in  matter  of  religion  the 
dog  is  capable  of  anything."  The  Nation,  Vol.  XV.  p.  284,  October 
1,  ia»r2.    To  be  sure,  I  do  not  know  for  certain  what  was  going  on  in 


222 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


The  conception  of  a  soul  or  other  self,  capable  of  going 
away  from  the  body  and  returning  to  it,  receives  decisive 
confirmation  from  the  phenomena  of  fainting,  trance, 
catalepsy,  and  ecstasy,*  which  occur  less  rarely  among 
savages,  owing  to  their  irregular  mode  of  life,  than 
among  civilized  men.  "Further  verification,"  observes 
Mr.  Spencer,  "  is  afforded  by  every  epileptic  subject,  into 
whose  body,  during  the  absence  of  the  other  self,  some 
enemy  has  entered  ;  for  how  else  does  it  happen  that  the 
other  self  on  returning  denies  all  knowledge  of  what  his 
body  has  been  doing  ?  And  this  supposition,  that  the 
body  has  been  '  possessed '  by  some  other  being,  is  con- 
firmed by  the  phenomena  of  somnambulism  and  insan- 

the  dog's  mind  ;  and  so,  letting  both  explanations  stand,  I  will  only  add 
another  fact  of  similar  import.  ''The  tendency  in  savages  to  imagine 
that  natural  objects  and  agencies  are  animated  by  spiritual  or  living 
essences  is  perhaps  illustrated  by  a  little  fact  which  I  once  noticed : 
my  dog,  a  full-grown  and  very  sensible  animal,  was  lying  on  the  lawn 
during  a  hot  and  still  day  ;  but  at  a  little  distance  a  slight  breeze  occa- 
sionally moved  an  open  parasol,  which  would  have  been  wholly  disre- 
garded by  the  dog,  had  any  one  stood  near  it.  As  it  was,  every  time 
that  the  parasol  slightly  moved,  the  dog  growled  fiercely  and  barked. 
He  must,  I  think,  have  reasoned  to  himself,  in  a  rapid  and  unconscious 
manner,  that  movement  without  any  apparent  cause  indicated  the  pres- 
ence of  some  strange  living  agent,  and  no  stranger  had  a  right  to  be  on 
his  territory."  Darwin,  Descent,  of  Man,  Vol.  I,  p.  64.  Without  in- 
sisting upon  all  the  details  of  this  explanation,  one  may  readily  grant,  I 
think,  that  in  the  dog,  as  in  the  savage,  there  is  an  undisturbed  associ- 
ation between  motion  and  a  living  motor  agency  ;  and  that  out  of  a 
multitude  of  just  such  associations  common  to  both,  the  savage,  with  his 
greater  generalizing  power,  frames  a  truly  fetichistic  conception. 

*  Note  the  fetichism  wrapped  up  in  the  etymologies  of  these  Greek 
words.  Catalepsy,  KaTdXrjipis,  a  seizing  of  the  body  by  some  spirit  or 
demon,  who  holds  it  rigid.  Ecstasy,  ^Ko-raa-is,  a  displacement  or  re- 
moval of  the  soul  from  the  body,  into  which  the  demon  enters  and 
causes  strange  laughing,  crying,  or  contortions.  It  is  not  metaphor, 
but  the  literal  belief  in  a  ghost-world,  which  has  given  rise  to  such 
words  as  these,  and  to  such  expressions  as  "a  man  beside  himself  or 
tranisported" 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD.  223 


ity."  Still  further,  as  Mr.  Spencer  points  out,  when  we 
recollect  that  savages  are  very  generally  unwilling  to 
have  their  portraits  taken,  lest  a  portion  of  themselves 
should  get  carried  ofi*  and  be  exposed  to  foul  play,*  we 

*  Something  akin  to  the  savage's  belief  in  the  animation  of  pictures 
may  be  seen  in  young  children.  I  have  often  been  asked  by  my  three- 
year-old  boy,  whether  the  dog  in  a  certain  picture  would  bite  him  if  he 
were  to  go  near  it ;  and  I  can  remember  that,  in  my  own  childhood, 
when  reading  a  book  about  insects,  which  had  the  formidable  likeness 
of  a  spider  stamped  on  the  centre  of  the  cover,  I  was  always  uneasy  lest 
my  finger  should  come  in  contact  with  the  dreaded  thing  as  I  held  the 
book. 

With  the  savage's  unwillingness  to  have  his  portrait  taken,  lest  it  fall 
into  the  hands  of  some  enemy  who  may  injure  him  by  conjuring  with 
it,  may  be  compared  the  reluctance  which  he  often  shows  toward  telling 
his  name,  or  mentioning  the  name  of  his  friend,  or  king,  or  tutelar 
ghost-deity.  In  fetichistic  thought,  the  name  is  an  entity  mysteriously 
associated  with  its  owner,  and  it  is  not  well  to  run  the  risk  of  its  get- 
ting into  hostile  hands.  Along  with  this  caution  goes  the  similarly 
originated  fear  that  the  person  whose  name  is  spoken  may  resent  such 
meddling  with  his  personality.  For  the  latter  reason  the  Dayak  will 
not  allude  by  name  to  the  small-pox,  but  will  call  it  "the  chief"  or 
"jungle-leaves"  ;  the  Laplander  speaks  of  the  bear  as  the  "old  man 
with  the  fur  coat";  in  Annam  the  tiger  is  called  "grandfather"  or 
"Lord  "  ;  while  in  more  civilized  communities  such  sayings  are  current 
as  "talk  of  the  Devil,  and  he  will  appear,"  with  which  we  may  also 
compare  such  expressions  as  "Eumenides  "  or  "gi-acious  ones"  for  the 
Furies,  and  other  like  euphemisms.  Indeed,  the  maxim  nil  mortuis 
nisi  honum  had  most  likely  at  one  time  a  fetichistic  flavour. 

In  various  islands  of  the  Pacific,  for  both  the  reasons  above  specified,  the 
name  of  the  reigning  chief  is  so  rigorously  "tabu,"  that  common  words 
and  even  syllables  resembling  that  name  in  sound  must  be  omitted  from 
the  language.  In  New  Zealand,  where  a  chiefs  name  was  Maripi,  or 
"knife,"  it  became  necessary  to  call  knives  nekra  ;  and  in  Tahiti,  fctu, 
"star,"  had  to  be  changed  into  fetia,  and  tui,  "  to  strike,"  became  tiai, 
etc.,  because  the  king's  name  was  Tu.  Curious  freaks  are  played  with 
the  languages  of  these  islands  by  this  ever-recurring  necessity.  Among 
the  Kafirs  the  women  have  come  to  speak  a  different  dialect  from  the 
men,  because  words  resembling  the  names  of  their  lords  or  male  rela- 
tives are  in  like  manner  "tabu."  The  student  of  human  culture  will 
trace  among  such  primeval  notions  the  origin  of  the  Jew's  unwillingnesa 


224 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


must  readily  admit  that  the  weird  reflection  of  the  person 
and  imitation  of  the  gestures  in  rivers  or  still  woodland 
pools  will  go  far  to  intensify  the  belief  in  the  other  self. 
Less  frequent  but  uniform  confirmation  is  to  be  found  in 
echoes,  which  in  Europe  within  two  centuries  have  been 
commonly  interpreted  as  the  voices  of  mocking  fiends  or 
wood-nymphs,  and  which  the  savage  might  well  regard 
as  the  utterances  of  his  other  self 

Chamisso's  well-known  tale  of  Peter  Schlemihl  belongs 
to  a  widely  diffused  family  of  legends,  which  show  that  a 
man's  shadow  has  been  generally  regarded  not  only  as  an 
entity,  but  as  a  sort  of  spiritual  attendant  of  the  body, 
which  under  certain  circumstances  it  may  permanently 
forsake.  It  is  in  strict  accordance  with  this  idea  that 
not  only  in  the  classic  languages,  but  in  various  barbaric 
tongues,  the  word  for  "  shadow "  expresses  also  the  soul 
or  other  self  Tasmanians,  Algonquins,  Central-Ameri- 
cans, Abipones,  Basutos,  and  Zulus  are  cited  by  Mr.  Tylor 
as  thus  implicitly  asserting  the  identity  of  the  shadow 
with  the  ghost  or  phantasm  seen  in  dreams  ;  the  Basutos 
going  so  far  as  to  think  "that  if  a  man  walks  on  the 
river-bank,  a  crocodile  may  seize  his  shadow  in  the  water 
and  draw  him  in."  Among  the  Algonquins  a  sick  person 
is  supposed  to  have  his  shadow  or  other  self  temporarily 
detached  from  his  body,  and  the  convalescent  is  at  times 
"  reproached  for  exposing  himself  before  his  shadow  was 
safely  settled  down  in  him."    If  the  sick  man  has  been 

to  pronounce  the  name  of  Jehovah. ;  and  hence  we  may  perhaps  have 
before  us  the  ultimate  source  of  the  horror  with  which  the  Hebraizing 
Puritan  regards  such  forms  of  light  swearing — "Mon  Dieu,"  etc. — 
as  are  still  tolerated  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  but  have  disappeared 
from  good  society  in  Puritanic  England  and  America.  The  reader  in- 
terested in  this  group  of  ideas  and  customs  may  consult  Tylor,  Early 
History  of  Mankind,  pp.  142,  363  ;  Max  Miiller,  Science  of  Language, 
6th  edition.  Vol.  II.  p.  37  ;  Mackay,  Religious  Development  of  the 
Greeks  and  Hebrews,  Vol.  I.  p.  146. 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD.  22$ 


plunged  into  stupor,  it  is  because  his  other  self  has 
travelled  away  as  far  as  the  brink  of  the  river  of  death, 
but  not  being  allowed  to  cross  has  come  back  and  re- 
entered him.  And  acting  upon  a  similar  notion  the  ail- 
ing Fiji  will  sometimes  lie  down  and  raise  a  hue  and  cry 
for  his  soul  to  be  brought  back.  Thus,  continues  Mr. 
Tylor,  "in  various  countries  the  bringing  back  of  lost 
souls  becomes  a  regular  part  of  the  sorcerer's  or  priest's 
profession."  *  On  Aryan  soil  we  find  the  notion  of  a 
temporary  departure  of  the  soul  surviving  to  a  late  date 
in  the  theory  that  the  witch  may  attend  the  infernal  Sab- 
bath while  her  earthly  tabernacle  is  quietly  sleeping  at 
home.  The  primeval  conception  reappears,  clothed  in 
bitterest  sarcasm,  in  Dante's  reference  to  his  living  con- 
temporaries whose  souls  he  met  with  in  the  vaults  of 
hell,  while  their  bodies  were  stiU  walking  about  on  the 
earth,  inhabited  by  devils. 

The  theory  which  identifies  the  soul  with  the  shadow, 
and  supposes  the  shadow  to  depart  with  the  sickness  and 
death  of  the  body,  would  seem  liable  to  be  attended  with 
some  difficulties  in  the  way  of  verification,  even  to  the 
dim  intelligence  of  the  savage.  But  the  propriety  of 
identifying  soul  and  breath  is  borne  out  by  all  primeval 
experience.  The  breath,  w^hich  really  quits  the  body  at 
its  decease,  has  furnished  the  chief  name  for  the  soul, 
not  only  to  the  Hebrew,  the  Sanskrit,  and  the  classic 
tongues ;  not  only  to  German  and  English,  where  geist, 
and  ghost,  according  to  Max  Muller,  have  the  meaning  of 
"breath,"  and  are  akin  to  such  words  as  gas,  gust,  and 
geyser ;  but  also  to  numerous  barbaric  languages.  Among 

*  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  I.  394.  "The  Zulus  hold  that  a  dead 
body  can  cast  no  shadow,  because  that  appurtenance  departed  from  it  at 
the  close  of  life."  Hardwick,  Traditions,  Superstitions,  and  Folk-Lore, 
p.  123. 

10*  o 


226 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


the  natives  of  Nicaragua  and  California,  in  Java  and  in 
West  Australia,  the  soul  is  described  as  the  air  or  breeze 
which  passes  in  and  out  through  the  nostrils  and  mouth ; 
and  the  Greenlanders,  according  to  Cranz,  reckon  two 
separate  souls,  the  breath  and  the  shadow.  "  Among  the 
Seminoles  of  Florida,  when  a  woman  died  in  childbirth, 
the  infant  was  held  over  her  face  to  receive  her  parting 
spirit,  and  thus  acquire  strength  and  knowledge  for  its 

future  use  Their  state  of  mind  is  kept  up  to  this 

day  among  Tyrolese  peasants,  who  can  still  fancy  a  good 
man's  soul  to  issue  from  his  mouth  at  death  like  a  little 
white  cloud."  *  It  is  kept  up,  too,  in  Lancashire,  where  a 
well-known  witch  died  a  few  years  since  ;  "  but  before  she 
could  '  shuffle  off  this  mortal  coil '  she  must  needs  trans- 
fer her  familiar  spirit  to  some  trusty  successor.  An  in- 
timate acquaintance  from  a  neighbouring  township  was 
consequently  sent  for  in  all  haste,  and  on  her  arrival  was 
immediately  closeted  with  her  dying  friend.  What 
passed  between  them  has  never  fully  transpired,  but  it  is 
confidently  affirmed  that  at  the  close  of  the  interview 
this  associate  received  the  witch's  last  hreath  into  her  mouth 
and  with  it  her  familiar  spirit.  The  dreaded  woman 
thus  ceased  to  exist,  but  her  powers  for  good  or  evil  were 
transferred  to  her  companion ;  and  on  passing  along  the 
road  from  Burnley  to  Blackburn  we  can  point  out  a  farm- 
house at  no  great  distance  with  whose  thrifty  matron  no 
neighbouring  farmer  will  yet  dare  to  quarrel." 

Of  the  theory  of  embodiment  there  will  be  occasion  to 
speak  further  on.  At  present  let  us  not  pass  over  the 
fact  that  the  other  self  is  not  only  conceived  as  shadow 
or  breath,  which  can  at  times  quit  the  body  during  life, 
but  is  also  supposed  to  become  temporarily  embodied  in 

*  Tylor,  op.  cit.  I.  391. 

t  Harland  and  Wilkinson,  Lancashire  Folk-Lore,  1867,  p.  210, 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD. 


227 


the  visible  form  of  some  bird  or  beast.  In  discussing 
elsewhere  the  myth  of  Bishop  Hatto,  we  saw  that  the 
soul  is  sometimes  represented  in  the  form  of  a  rat  or 
mouse ;  and  in  treating  of  werewolves  we  noticed  the 
belief  that  the  spirits  of  dead  ancestors,  borne  along  in 
the  night-wind,  have  taken  on  the  semblance  of  howling 
dogs  or  wolves.  "  Consistent  with  these  quaint  ideas  are 
ceremonies  in  vogue  in  China  of  bringing  home  in  a 
cock  (live  or  artificial)  the  spirit  of  a  man  deceased  in  a 
distant  place,  and  of  enticing  into  a  sick  man's  coat  the 
departing  spirit  which  has  already  left  his  body  and  so 
conveying  it  back."  *  In  Castr^n's  great  work  on  Fin- 
nish mythology,  we  find  the  story  of  the  giant  who  could 
not  be  killed  because  he  kept  his  soul  hidden  in  a  twelve- 
headed  snake  which  he  carried  in  a  bag  as  he  rode  on 
horseback ;  only  when  the  secret  w^as  discovered  and  the 
snake  carefully  killed,  did  the  giant  yield  up  his  life.  In 
this  Finnish  legend  we  have  one  of  the  thousand  phases  of 
the  story  of  the  "  Giant  who  had  no  Heart  in  his  Body,"  but 
whose  heart  was  concealed,  for  safe  keeping,  in  a  duck's 
egg,  or  in  a  pigeon,  carefully  disposed  in  some  belfry  at  the 
world's  end  a  million  miles  away,  or  encased  in  a  well- 
nigh  infinite  series  of  Chinese  boxes.-f*  Since,  in  spite 
of  all  these  precautions,  the  poor  giant's  heart  invariably 
came  to  grief,  we  need  not  wonder  at  the  Karen  super- 
stition that  the  soul  is  in  danger  when  it  quits  the  body 

*  Tylor,  op.  cit.  II.  139. 

+  In  Russia  the  souls  of  the  dead  are  supposed  to  be  embodied  in 
pigeons  or  crows.  "Thus  when  the  Deacon  Theodore  and  his  three 
schismatic  brethren  were  burnt  in  1681,  the  souls  of  the  martyrs,  as  the 
*  Old  Believers '  affirm,  appeared  in  the  air  as  pigeons.  In  Volhynia 
dead  children  are  sup])osed  to  come  back  in  the  spring  to  their  native 
village  under  the  semblance  of  swallows  and  other  small  birds,  and  to 
seek  by  soft  twittering  or  song  to  console  their  sorrowing  parents." 
Ralston,  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,  p.  118, 


228 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


on  its  excursions,  as  exemplified  in  countless  Indo-Euro- 
pean stories  of  the  accidental  killing  of  the  weird  mouse 
or  pigeon  which  embodies  the  wandering  spirit.  Con- 
versely it  is  held  that  the  detachment  of  the  other  self 
is  fraught  with  danger  to  the  self  which  remains.  In  the 
philosophy  of  "wraiths"  and  "fetches,"  the  appearance 
of  a  double,  like  that  which  troubled  Mistress  Affery  in 
her  waking  dreams  of  Mr.  Flintwinch,  has  been  from 
time  out  of  mind  a  signal  of  alarm.  "  In  New  Zealand 
it  is  ominous  to  see  the  figure  of  an  absent  person,  for  if 
it  be  shadowy  and  the  face  not  visible,  his  death  may 
erelong  be  expected,  but  if  the  face  be  seen  he  is  dead 
already.  A  party  of  Maoris  (one  of  whom  told  the 
story)  were  seated  round  a  fire  in  the  open  air,  when 
there  appeared,  seen  only  by  two  of  them,  the  figure  of  a 
relative,  left  ill  at  home  ;  they  exclaimed,  the  figure  van- 
ished, and  on  the  return  of  the  party  it  appeared  that  the 
sick  man  had  died  about  the  time  of  the  vision."  *  The 
belief  in  wraiths  has  survived  into  modern  times,  and  now 
and  then  appears  in  the  records  of  that  remnant  of  pri- 
meval philosophy  known  as  "  spiritualism,"  as,  for  exam- 
ple, in  the  case  of  the  lady  who  "  thought  she  saw  her 
own  father  look  in  at  the  church- window  at  the  moment 
he  was  dying  in  his  own  house." 

The  belief  in  the  "  death-fetch,"  like  the  doctrine 
which  identifies  soul  with  shadow,  is  instructive  as  show- 
ing that  in  barbaric  thought  the  other  self  is  supposed  to 
resemble  the  material  self  with  which  it  has  customarily 
been  associated.  In  various  savage  superstitions  the  min- 
ute resemblance  of  soul  to  body  is  forcibly  stated.  The 
Australian,  for  instance,  not  content  with  slaying  his  ene- 
my, cuts  off  the  right  thumb  of  the  corpse,  so  that  the  de- 
parted soul  may  be  incapacitated  from  throwing  a  spear. 

*  Tylor,  op.  cit.  I.  404. 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD. 


Even  the  half-civilized  Chinese  prefer  crucifixion  to  de- 
capitation, that  their  souls  may  not  wander  headless 
about  the  spirit- world.*  Thus  we  see  how  far  removed 
from  the  Christian  doctrine  of  souls  is  the  primeval  theory 
of  the  soul  or  other  self  that  figures  in  dreamland.  So 
grossly  materialistic  is  the  primitive  conception  that  the 
savage  who  cherishes  it  will  bore  holes  in  the  cofiin  of 
his  dead  friend,  so  that  the  soul  may  again  have  a  chance, 
if  it  likes,  to  revisit  the  body.  To  this  day,  among  the 
peasants  in  some  parts  of  Northern  Europe,  when  Odin, 
the  spectral  hunter,  rides  by  attended  by  his  furious  host, 
the  windows  in  every  sick-room  are  opened,  in  order 
that  the  soul,  if  it  chooses  to  depart,  may  not  be  hindered 
from  joining  in  the  headlong  chase.  And  so,  adds  Mr. 
Tylor,  after  the  Indians  of  North  America  had  spent  a 
riotous  night  in  singeing  an  unfortunate  captive  to  death 
with  firebrands,  they  would  howl  like  the  fiends  they 
were,  and  beat  the  air  with  brushwood,  to  drive  away  the 
distressed  and  revengeful  ghost.  "  With  a  kindlier  feeling^ 
the  Congo  negroes  abstained  for  a  whole  year  after  a  death 
from  sweeping  the  house,  lest  the  dust  sliould  injure  the 
delicate  substance  of  the  ghost "  ;  and  even  now,  "  it  re- 
mains a  German  peasant  saying  that  it  is  wrong  to  slam 
a  door,  lest  one  should  pinch  a  soul  in  it."  f  Dante's  ex- 
perience with  the  ghosts  in  hell  and  purgatory,  who  were 
astonished  at  his  weighing  down  the  boat  in  which  they 
were  carried,  is  belied  by  the  sweet  German  notion  "  that 
the  dead  mother's  coming  back  in  the  night  to  suckle  the 

*  Tylor,  op.  cit.  I.  407. 

t  Tylor,  op.  cit.  I.  410.  In  the  next  stage  of  survival  this  belief 
will  take  the  shape  that  it  is  wrong  to  slam  a  door,  no  reason  being  as- 
signed ;  and  in  the  succeeding  stage,  when  the  child  asks  why  it  is  naughty 
to  slam  a  door,  he  will  be  told,  because  it  is  an  evidence  of  bad  temper. 
Thus  do  old-world  fancies  disappear  before  the  inroads  of  the  practicaJ 


230  MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

babj  she  has  left  on  earth  may  be  known  by  the  hollow 
pressed  down  in  the  bed  where  she  lay."  Almost  univer- 
sally ghosts,  however  impervious  to  thrust  of  sword  or 
shot  of  pistol,  can  eat  and  drink  like  Squire  Westerns. 
And  lastly,  we  have  the  grotesque  conception  of  souls 
sufficiently  material  to  be  killed  over  again,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  negro  widows  who,  wishing  to  marry  a  second 
time,  will  go  and  duck  themselves  in  the  pond,  in  order 
to  drown  the  souls  of  their  departed  husbands,  which  are 
supposed  to  cling  about  their  necks ;  while,  according  to 
the  Fiji  theory,  the  ghost  of  every  dead  warrior  must  go 
through  a  terrible  fight  with  Samu  and  his  brethren,  in 
which,  if  he  succeeds,  he  will  enter  Paradise,  but  if  he 
fails  he  will  be  killed  over  again  and  finally  eaten  by  the 
dreaded  Samu  and  his  unearthly  company. 

From  the  conception  of  souls  embodied  in  beast-forms, 
as  above  illustrated,  it  is  not  a  wide  step  to  the  concep- 
tion of  beast-souls  which,  like  human  souls,  survive  the 
death  of  the  tangible  body.  The  wide-spread  supersti- 
tions concerning  werewolves  and  swan-maidens,  and  the 
hardly  less  general  belief  in  metempsychosis,  show  that 
primitive  culture  has  not  arrived  at  the  distinction  at- 
tained by  modern  philosophy  between  the  immortal  man 
and  the  soulless  brute.  Still  more  direct  evidence  is  fur- 
nished by  sundry  savage  customs.  The  Kafir  who  has 
killed  an  elephant  will  cry  that  he  did  n't  mean  to  do  it, 
and,  lest  the  elephant's  soul  should  still  seek  vengeance, 
he  will  cut  off  and  bury  the  trunk,  so  that  the  mighty 
beast  may  go  crippled  to  the  spirit-land.  In  like  manner, 
the  Samoyeds,  after  shooting  a  bear,  will  gather  about 
the  body  offering  excuses  and  laying  the  blame  on  the 
Russians ;  and  the  American  redskin  will  even  put  the 
pipe  of  peace  into  the  dead  animal's  mouth,  and  beseech 
him  to  forgive  the  deed.    In  Assam  it  is  believed  that 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD.  23 1 


the  ghosts  of  slain  animals  will  become  in  the  next  world 
the  property  of  "the  hunter  who  kills  them ;  and  the 
Kamtchadales  expressly  declare  that  all  animals,  even 
flies  and  bugs,  will  live  after  death,  —  a  belief,  which,  in 
our  own  day,  has  been  indorsed  on  philosophical  grounds 
by  an  eminent  living  naturalist.*  The  Greenlanders,  too, 
give  evidence  of  the  same  belief  by  supposing  that  when 
after  an  exhausting  fever  the  patient  comes  up  in  unpre- 
cedented health  and  vigour,  it  is  because  he  has  lost  his 
former  soul  and  had  it  replaced  by  that  of  a  young  child 
or  a  reindeer.  In  a  recent  work  in  which  the  crudest 
fancies  of  primeval  savagery  are  thinly  disguised  in  a 
jargon  learned  from  the  superficial  reading  of  modern 
books  of  science,  M.  Figuier  maintains  that  human  souls 
are  for  the  most  part  the  surviving  souls  of  deceased  ani- 
mals ;  in  general,  the  souls  of  precocious  musical  children 
like  Mozart  come  from  nightingales,  while  the  souls  of 
great  architects  have  passed  into  them  from  beavers,  etc., 
etc. 

The  practice  of  begging  pardon  of  the  animal  one  has 
just  slain  is  in  some  parts  of  the  world  extended  to  the 
case  of  plants.  When  the  Talein  offers  a  prayer  to  the 
tree  which  he  is  about  to  cut  down,  it  is  obviously  be- 
cause he  regards  the  tree  as  endowed  with  a  soul  or  ghost 
which  in  the  next  life  may  need  to  be  propitiated.  And 
the  doctrine  of  transmigration  distinctly  includes  plants 
along  with  animals  among  the  future  existences  into 
which  the  human  soul  may  pass. 

As  plants,  like  animals,  manifest  phenomena  of  life, 
though  to  a  much  less  conspicuous  degree,  it  is  not  in- 
comprehensible that  the  savage  should  attribute  souls  to 
them.    But  the  primitive  process  of  anthropomorphisa- 

*  Agassiz,  Essay  on  Classification,  pp.  97  -  99. 
t  Figuier,  The  To-morrow  of  Death,  p.  247. 


232 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


tion  does  not  end  here.  Not  only  the  horse  and  dog,  the 
bamboo,  and  the  oak-tree,  but  even  lifeless  objects,  such 
as  the  hatchet,  or  bow  and  arrows,  or  food  and  drink  of 
the  dead  man,  possess  other  selves  which  pass  into  the 
world  of  ghosts.  Fijis  and  other  contemporary  savages, 
when  questioned,  expressly  declare  that  this  is  their  be- 
lief. "  If  an  axe  or  a  chisel  is  worn  out  or  broken  up, 
away  flies  its  soul  for  the  service  of  the  gods."  The 
Algonquins  told  Charlevoix  that  since  hatchets  and  ket- 
tles have  shadows,  no  less  than  men  and  women,  it  fol- 
lows, of  course,  that  these  shadows  (or  souls)  must  pass 
along  with  human  shadows  (or  souls)  into  the  spirit-land. 
In  tliis  we  see  how  simple  and  consistent  is  the  logic 
which  guides  the  savage,  and  how  inevitable  is  the  genesis 
of  the  great  mass  of  beliefs,  to  our  minds  so  arbitrary 
and  grotesque,  which  prevail  throughout  the  barbaric 
world.  However  absurd  the  belief  that  pots  and  kettles 
have  souls  may  seem  to  us,  it  is  nevertheless  the  only 
belief  which  can  be  held  consistently  by  the  savage  to 
whom  pots  and  kettles,  no  less  than  human  friends  or 
enemies,  may  appear  in  his  dreams ;  who  sees  them  fol- 
lowed by  shadows  as  they  are  moved  about ;  who  hears 
their  voices,  dull  or  ringing,  when  they  are  struck ;  and 
who  watches  their  doubles  fantastically  dancing  in  the 
water  as  they  are  carried  across  the  stream.*  To  minds, 
even  in  civilized  countries,  which  are  unused  to  the 
severe  training  of  science,  no  stronger  evidence  can  be 
alleged  than  what  is  called  "  the  evidence  of  the  senses  "  ; 
for  it  is  only  long  familiarity  with  science  which  teaches 

*  Here,  as  usually,  the  doctrine  of  metempsychosis  comes  in  to  com- 
plete the  proof.  **  Mr.  Darwin  saw  two  Malay  women  in  Keeling  Island, 
who  had  a  wooden  spoon  dressed  in  clothes  like  a  doll  ;  this  spoon  had 
been  carried  to  the  grave  of  a  dead  man,  and  becoming  inspired  at  full 
moon,  in  fact  lunatic,  it  danced  about  convulsively  like  a  table  or  a  hat 
at  a  modern  spirit-sAiwce."    Tylor,  op.  cit.  II.  139. 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD.  233 


US  that  the  evidence  of  the  senses  is  trustworthy  only  in 
80  far  as  it  is  correctly  interpreted  by  reason.  For  the 
truth  of  his  belief  in  the  ghosts  of  men  and  beasts,  trees 
and  axes,  the  savage  has  undeniably  the  evidence  of  his 
senses  which  have  so  often  seen,  heard,  and  handled 
these  other  selves. 

The  funeral  ceremonies  of  uncultured  races  freshly 
illustrate  this  crude  philosophy,  and  receive  fresh  illus- 
tration from  it.  On  the  primitive  belief  in  the  ghostly 
survival  of  persons  and  objects  rests  the  almost  universal 
custom  of  sacrificing  the  wives,  servants,  horses,  and  dogs 
of  the  departed  chief  of  the  tribe,  as  well  as  of  presenting 
at  his  shrine  sacred  offerings  of  food,  ornaments,  weapons, 
and  money.  Among  the  Kayans  the  slaves  who  are  killed 
at  their  master's  tomb  are  enjoined  to  take  great  care  of 
their  master's  ghost,  to  wash  and  shampoo  it,  and  to  nurse 
it  when  sick.  Other  savages  think  that  "  all  whom  they 
kill  in  this  world  shall  attend  them  as  slaves  after  death," 
and  for  this  reason  the  thrifty  Dayaks  of  Borneo  until 
lately  would  not  allow  their  young  men  to  marry  until 
they  had  acquired  some  post  mortem  property  by  procur- 
ing at  least  one  human  head.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to 
do  more  than  allude  to  the  Fiji  custom  of  strangling  aU 
the  wives  of  the  deceased  at  his  funeral,  or  to  the  equally 
well-known  Hindu  rite  of  suttee.  Though,  as  Wilson 
has  shown,  the  latter  rite  is  not  supported  by  any  genuine 
Vedic  authority,  but  only  by  a  shameless  Brahmanic  cor- 
ruption of  the  sacred  text,  Mr.  Tylor  is  nevertheless  quite 
right  in  arguing  that  unless  the  horrible  custom  had  re- 
ceived the  sanction  of  a  public  opinion  bequeathed  from 
pre- Vedic  times,  the  Brahmans  would  have  had  no  motive 
for  fraudulently  reviving  it ;  and  this  opinion  is  virtually 
established  by  the  fact  of  the  prevalence  of  widow  sacri- 
fice among  Gauls,  Scandinavians,  Slaves,  and  other  Euro- 


234 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


pean  Aryans.*  Though  under  English  rule  the  rite  has 
been  forcibly  suppressed,  yet  the  archaic  sentiments 
which  so  long  maintained  it  are  not  yet  extinct.  Within 
the  present  year  there  has  appeared  in  the  newspapers  a 
not  improbable  story  of  a  beautiful  and  accomplished 
Hindu  lady  who,  having  become  the  wife  of  a  wealthy 
Englishman,  and  after  living  several  years  in  England 
amid  the  influences  of  modern  society,  nevertheless  went 
off  and  privately  burned  herself  to  death  soon  after  her 
husband's  decease. 

The  reader  who  thinks  it  far-fetched  to  interpret  funeral 
offerings  of  food,  weapons,  ornaments,  or  money,  on  the 
theory  of  object-souls,  will  probably  suggest  that  such 
offerings  may  be  mere  memorials  of  affection  or  esteem 
for  the  dead  man.  Such,  indeed,  they  have  come  to  be 
in  many  countries  after  surviving  the  phase  of  culture  in 
which  they  originated ;  but  there  is  ample  evidence  to 
show  that  at  the  outset  they  were  presented  in  the  belief 
that  their  ghosts  would  be  eaten  or  otherwise  employed 
by  the  ghost  of  the  dead  man.  The  stout  club  which  is 
buried  with  the  dead  Fiji  sends  its  soul  along  with  him 
that  he  may  be  able  to  defend  himself  against  the  hostile 
ghosts  which  will  lie  in  ambush  for  him  on  the  road  to 
Mbulu,  seeking  to  kill  and  eat  him.  Sometimes  the  club 
is  afterwards  removed  from  the  grave  as  of  no  further  use, 
since  its  ghost  is  all  that  the  dead  man  needs.  In  like 
manner,  "  as  the  Greeks  gave  the  dead  man  the  obolus 
for  Charon's  toll,  and  the  old  Prussians  furnished  him 
with  spending  money,  to  buy  refreshment  on  his  weary 
journey,  so  to  this  day  German  peasants  bury  a  corpse 
with  money  in  his  mouth  or  hand,"  and  this  is  also  said 
to  be  one  of  the  regular  ceremonies  of  an  Irish  wake. 
Of  similar  purport  were  the  funeral  feasts  and  oblations 

*  Tylor,  op.  cit.  I.  414-422.  . 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD.  235 


of  food  in  Greece  and  Italy,  the  "  rice-cakes  made  with 
ghee  "  destined  for  the  Hindu  sojourning  in  Yarna's  king- 
dom, and  the  meat  and  gruel  offered  by  the  Chinaman  to 
the  manes  of  his  ancestors.  "  Many  travellers  have  de- 
scribed the  imagination  with  which  the  Chinese  make 
such  offerings.  It  is  that  the  spirits  of  the  dead  consume 
the  impalpable  essence  of  the  food,  leaving  behind  its 
coarse  material  substance,  wherefore  the  dutiful  sacrificers, 
having  set  out  sumptuous  feasts  for  ancestral  souls,  allow 
them  a  proper  time  to  satisfy  their  appetite,  and  then 
fall  to  themselves."  *  So  in  the  Homeric  sacrifice  to  the 
gods,  after  the  deity  has  smelled  the  sweet  savour  and 
consumed  the  curling  steam  that  rises  ghost-like  from 
the  roasting  viands,  the  assembled  warriors  devour  the 
remains."  -|- 

Thus  far  the  course  of  fetichistic  thought  which  we 
have  traced  out,  with  Mr.  Tylor's  aid,  is  such  as  is  not 
always  obvious  to  the  modern  inquirer  without  consider- 
able concrete  ilhistration.  The  remainder  of  the  process, 
resulting  in  that  systematic  and  complete  anthropomor- 
phisation  of  nature  wliich  has  given  rise  to  mythology, 
may  be  more  succinctly  described.  Gathering  together 
the  conclusions  already  obtained,  we  find  that  daily  or 
frequent  experience  of  the  phenomena  of  shadows  and 
dreams  has  combined  with  less  frequent  experience  of  the 
phenomena  of  trance,  ecstasy,  and  insanity,  to  generate 
in  the  mind  of  uncultured  man  the  notion  of  a  twofold 
existence  appertaining  alike  to  aU  animate  or  inanimate 
objects  :  as  aU  alike  possess  material  bodies,  so  all  alike 
possess  ghosts  or  souls.  Now  when  the  theory  of  object- 
souls  is  expanded  into  a  general  doctrine  of  spirits,  the 

*  Tylor,  op.  cit.  I.  435,  446  ;  II.  30,  36. 

t  According  to  the  Karens,  blindness  occurs  when  the  soul  of  the  eye 
is  eaten  by  demons.    Id.,  II.  353. 


236  KYTES  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 

philosophic  scheme  of  animism  is  completed.  Once  ha^ 
bituated  to  the  conception  of  souls  of  knives  and  tobacco- 
pipes  passing  to  the  land  of  ghosts,  the  savage  cannot  avoid 
carrying  the  interpretation  still  further,  so  that  wind  and 
water,  fire  and  storm,  are  accredited  with  indwelling 
spirits  akin,  by  nature  to  the  soul  which  inhabits  the 
human  frame.  That  the  mighty  spirit  or  demon  by  whose 
impelling  will  the  trees  are  rooted  up  and  the  storm- 
clouds  driven  across  the  sky  should  resemble  a  freed 
human  soul,  is  a  natural  inference,  since  uncultured  man 
has  not  attained  to  the  conception  of  physical  force  act- 
ing in  accordance  with  uniform  methods,  and  hence  all 
events  are  to  his  mind  the  manifestations  of  capricious 
volition.  If  the  fire  burns  down  his  hut,  it  is  because  the 
fire  is  a  person  with  a  soul,  and  is  angry  with  him,  and 
needs  to  be  coaxed  into  a  kindlier  mood  by  means  of 
prayer  or  sacrifice.  Thus  the  savage  has  a  priori  no 
alternative  but  to  regard  fire-soul  as  something  akin  to 
kuman-soul;  and  in  point  of  fact  we  find  that  savage 
philosophy  makes  no  distinction  between  the  human 
ghost  and  the  elemental  demon  or  deity.  This  is  suffi- 
eiently  proved  by  the  universal  prevalence  of  the  worship 
of  ancestors.  The  essential  principle  of  manes-worship 
is  that  the  tribal  chief  or  patriarch,  who  has  governed  the 
community  during  life,  continues  also  to  govern  it  after 
death,  assisting  it  in  its  warfare  with  hostile  tribes, 
rewarding  brave  warriors,  and  punishing  traitors  and 
cowards.  Thus  from  the  conception  of  the  living  king 
we  pass  to  the  notion  of  what  Mr.  Spencer  calls  "  the 
god-king,"  and  thence  to  the  rudimentary  notion  of  deity. 
Among  such  higher  savages  as  the  Zulus,  the  doctrine  of 
divine  ancestors  has  been  developed  to  the  extent  of  rec- 
ognizing a  first  ancestor,  the  Great  Father,  Unkulunkulu, 
who  made  the  world.    But  in  the  stratum  of  savage 


THE  PRIMEVAL  QHOST-WORLD,  237 


thought  in  which  barbaric  or  Aryan  folk-lore  is  for  the 
most  part  based,  we  find  no  such  exalted  speculation. 
The  ancestors  of  the  rude  Veddas  and  of  the  Guinea 
negroes,  the  Hindu  pitris  {patres,  "fathers"),  and  the 
Eoman  manes  have  become  elemental  deities  which  send 
rain  or  sunshine,  health  or  sickness,  plenty  or  famine,  and 
to  which  their  living  offspring  appeal  for  guidance  amid 
the  vicissitudes  of  life.*  The  theory  of  embodiment, 
already  alluded  to,  shows  how  thoroughly  the  demons 
which  cause  disease  are  identified  with  human  and  object 
souls.  In  Australasia  it  is  a  dead  man's  ghost  which 
creeps  up  into  the  liver  of  the  impious  wretch  who  has 
ventured  to  pronounce  his  name  ;  while  conversely  in  the 
well-known  European  theory  of  demoniacal  possession, 
it  is  a  fairy  from  elf-land,  or  an  imp  from  hell,  which  has 
entered  the  body  of  the  sufferer.  In  the  close  kinship, 
moreover,  between  disease-possession  and  oracle-posses- 
sion, where  the  body  of  the  Pythia,  or  the  medicine-man, 
is  placed  und^r  the  direct  control  of  some  great  deity ,-[• 

*  The  following  citation  is  interesting  as  an  illustration  of  the  direct- 
ness of  descent  from  heathen  manes-worship  to  Christian  saint-worship  : 
"  It  is  well  known  that  Romulus,  mindful  of  his  own  adventurous  in- 
fancy, became  after  death  a  Roman  deity,  propitious  to  the  health  and 
safety  of  young  children,  so  that  nurses  and  mothers  would  carry  sickly 
infants  to  present  them  in  his  little  round  temple  at  the  foot  of  the  Pal- 
atine. In  after  ages  the  temple  was  replaced  by  the  church  of  St.  Theo- 
doras, and  there  Dr.  Conyers  Middleton,  who  drew  public  attention  to 
its  curious  history,  used  to  look  in  and  see  ten  or  a  dozen  women ,  each 
with  a  sick  child  in  her  lap,  sitting  in  silent  reverence  before  the  altar  of 
the  saint.  The  ceremony  of  blessing  children,  especially  after  vaccina- 
tion, may  still  be  seen  there  on  Thursday  mornings."    Op.  cit.  II.  111. 

+  Want  of  space  prevents  me  from  remarking  at  length  upon  Mr. 
Tylor's  admirable  treatment  of  the  phenomena  of  oracular  inspiration. 
Attention  should  be  called,  however,  to  the  brilliant  explanation  of  the 
importance  accorded  by  all  religions  to  the  rite  of  fasting.  Prolonged 
abstinence  from  food  tends  to  bring  on  a  mental  state  which  is  favour- 
able to  visions.    The  savage  priest  or  medicine-man  qualifies  himself  for 


238 


MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS. 


we  may  see  how  by  insensible  transitions  the  conception 
of  the  human  ghost  passes  into  the  conception  of  the 
spiritual  numen,  or  divinity. 

To  pursue  this  line  of  inquiry  through  the  countless 
nymphs  and  dryads  and  nixies  of  tlie  higher  nature- wor- 
ship up  to  the  Olympian  divinities  of  classic  polytheism, 
would  be  to  enter  upon  the  history  of  religious  belief,  and 
in  so  doing  to  lose  sight  of  our  present  purpose,  which  has 
merely  been  to  show  by  what  mental  process  the  myth- 
maker  can  speak  of  natural  objects  in  language  which 
implies  that  they  are  animated  persons.  Brief  as  our 
account  of  this  process  has  been,  I  believe  that  enough  has 
been  said,  not  only  to  reveal  the  inadequacy  of  purely 
philological  solutions  (like  those  contained  in  Max  Miil- 
ler's  famous  Essay)  to  explain  the  growth  of  myths,  but 
also  to  exhibit  the  vast  importance  for  this  purpose  of 
the  kind  of  psychological  inquiry  into  the  mental  habits 
of  savages  which  Mr.  Tylor  has  so  ably  conducted. 
Indeed,  however  lacking  we  may  still  be  in  points  of  de- 
tail, I  think  we  have  already  reached  a  very  satisfactory 
explanation  of  the  genesis  of  mythology.  Since  the  essen- 
tial characteristic  of  a  myth  is  that  it  is  an  attempt  to 
explain  some  natural  phenomenon  by  endowing  with 
human  feelings  and  capacities  the  senseless  factors  in  the 
phenomenon,  and  since  it  has  here  been  shown  how  un- 
cultured man,  by  the  best  use  he  can  make  of  his  rude 
common  sense,  must  inevitably  come,  and  has  invariably 
come,  to  regard  all  objects  as  endowed  with  souls,  and  all 
nature  as  peopled  with  supra-human  entities  shaped  after 
the  general  pattern  of  the  human  soul,  I  am  inclined  to 
suspect  that  we  have  got  very  near  to  the  root  of  the 

the  performance  of  his  duties  by  fasting,  and  where  this  is  not  sufficient, 
often  uses  intoxicating  drugs  ;  whence  the  sacredness  of  the  hasheesh,  as 
also  of  the  Vedic  soma-juice.  The  practice  of  fasting  among  civilized 
peoples  is  an  instance  of  survival. 


THE  PRIMEVAL  GHOST-WORLD.  239 


whole  matter.  We  can  certainly  find  no  difficulty  in 
seeing  why  a  water-spout  should  be  described  in  the 
"  Arabian  Nights  "  as  a  living  demon  :  "  The  sea  became 
troubled  before  them,  and  there  arose  from  it  a  black 
pillar,  ascending  towards  the  sky,  and  approaching  the 
meadow,  ....  and  behold  it  was  a  Jinni,  of  gigantic  stat- 
ure." We  can  see  why  the  Moslem  camel-driver  should 
find  it  most  natural  to  regard  the  whirling  simoom  as  a 
malignant  Jinni ;  we  may  understand  how  it  is  that  the 
Persian  sees  in  bodily  shape  the  scarlet  fever  as  "  a 
blushing  maid  with  locks  of  flame  and  cheeks  all  rosy 
red " ;  and  we  need  not  consider  it  strange  that  the  pri- 
meval Aryan  should  have  regarded  the  sun  as  a  voyager,  a 
climber,  or  an  archer,  and  the  clouds  as  cows  driven  by 
the  wind-god  Hermes  to  their  milking.  The  identifica- 
tion of  William  Tell  with  the  sun  becomes  thoroughly 
intelligible ;  nor  can  we  be  longer  surprised  at  the  con- 
ception of  the  howling  night-wind  as  a  ravenous  wolf. 
When  pots  and  kettles  are  thought  to  have  souls  that 
live  hereafter,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  understanding  how 
the  blue  sky  can  have  been  regarded  as  the  sire  of  gods 
and  men.  And  thus,  as  the  elves  and  bogarts  of  popular 
lore  are  in  many  cases  descended  from  ancient  divinities 
of  Olympos  and  Valhalla,  so  these  in  turn  must  acknowl- 
edge their  ancestors  in  the  shadowy  denizens  of  the  prime- 
val ghost- world. 

Augustf  1872. 


NOTE. 


The  following  are  some  of  the  modem  works  most  likely  to  be  of  use 
to  the  reader  who  is  interested  in  the  legend  of  William  Tell. 

HiSELY,  J.  J.  Dissertatio  historica  inauguralis  de  Gulielmo  Tellio, 
etc.    Groningje,  1824. 

Ideler,  J.  L.    Die  Sage  von  dem  Schuss  des  Tell.    Berlin,  1836. 

Hausser,  L.  Die  Sage  vom  Tell  aufs  Neue  kritisch  untersucht.  Hei- 
delberg, 1840. 

HiSELY,  J.  J.  Recherches  critiques  sur  I'histoire  de  Guillaume  Tell. 
Lausanne,  1843. 

LiEBENAU,  H.  Die  Tell-Sage  zu  dem  Jahre  1230  historisch  nach 
neuesten  Quellen.    Aarau,  1864. 

ViscHER,  W.  Die  Sage  von  der  Befreiung  der  Waldstatte,  etc. 
Nebst  einer  Beilage  :  das  alteste  Tellenschauspiel.    Leipzig,  1867. 

BoRDiER,  H.  L.  Le  Griitli  et  Guillaume  Tell,  ou  defense  de  la  tra- 
dition vulgaire  sur  les  origines  de  la  confederation  suisse.  Geneve 
et  Bale,  1869. 

The  same.    La  querelle  sur  les  traditions  concemant  I'origine  de  la 

confederation  suisse.    Gen^jve  et  Bale,  1869. 
RiLLiET,  A.     Les  origines  de  la  confederation  suisse  :  histoire  et 

legende.    2*  ed.,  revue  et  corrigee.    Genfeve  et  Bale,  1869. 
The  same.    Lettre  h  M.  Henri  Bordier  h,  propos  de  sa  defense  de  la 

tradition  vulgaire  sur  les  origines  de  la  confedemtion  suisse.  Geneve 

et  Bale,  1869. 

HuNGERBiJHLER,  H.  ^tude  critique  sur  les  traditions  relatives  aux 
origines  de  la  confederation  suisse.    Geneve  et  Bale,  1869. 

Meyer,  Karl.  Die  Tellsage.  [In  Bartsch,  Germanistische  Studien, 
L  159-170.]    Wien,  1872. 

See  also  the  articles  by  M.  Scherer,  in  Le  Temps,  18  Feb.,  1868  ; 
by  M.  Reuss,  in  the  lieviie  critique  d'histoire,  1868  ;  by  M.  de  Wiss,  in 
the  Journal  de  Geneve,  7  July,  1868  ;  also  JRevue  critique,  17  July, 
1869  ;  Journal  de  Genh^e,  24  Oct.,  1868  ;  Gazette  de  Lausanne,  feuille- 
ton  litt^raire,  2-5  Nov.,  1868,  *' Les  origines  de  la  confederation 
Buisse,"  par  M.  Secr^tan  ;  Edinburgh  Review,  Jan.,  1869,  "  The  Legend 
»f  Tell  and  Rutli." 


INDEX. 


A. 

Abgott,  105. 
Achaians,  180. 

Achilleis,  Mr.  Grote's  theory  of,  187. 

Acliilleus,  20,  24,  112,  187,  sej. 

Adeva,  121. 

Aditi,  104,  110. 

Adonis,  25,  204. 

Agamemnon,  19,  187,  seq.,  200. 

Agassiz,  his  belief  in  the  immortality 

of  lower  animals,  231. 
Agni,  110. 
Ahana,  20. 

Aharyu,  20,  121,  196. 
Ahi,  58,  114,  118. 

Ahmed  and  the  Peri  Banou,  30,  43,  49. 

Aliriman,  121. 

Ahuramazda,  121. 

Aias,  193. 

Aineias,  193. 

Aithiopes,  199. 

Aladdin's  ring,  45  ;  his  request  for  a 
roc's  egg  to  hang  in  the  dome  of  his 
palace,  50. 

Aleian  land,  50. 

Alexandrian  library,  15. 

Alexikakos,  117. 

Allegorical  interpretations  of  myths 

inadequate,  21,  214. 
Ambrosia,  63. 

American  culture-myths,  152 ;  sun- 
catcher  -  myth,  170  ;  tortoise  -  myth, 
172. 

Amrita,  63. 

Analogical  reasoning  among  savages, 

examples  of,  217. 
Animism,  215. 
Anro-mainyas,  121. 


Anteia,  205. 
Antigone,  115. 
Anti(iuity  of  man,  176. 
Antwerp,  71. 

Aphrodite,  18,  28,  30,  190,  204. 
Apollo  and  the  Messiah,  203. 
Apsaras,  96. 

Arabian  Nights,  11,  13,  36,  43,  50,  99, 

111,  239. 
Argive  as  an  epithet,  202. 
Argonauts,  133. 
Arkadians,  73, 
Arktos,  73. 
Amiida's  gardens,  30. 
Artemis,  18,  28,  190. 
Aryan  imniigration  into  Europe,  197. 
Ash-tree  dreaded  by  venomous  snakes, 

61. 

Ass  delivered  from  enchantment  by 
old  coat,  101. 

Association  of  ideas  variously  illus- 
trated in  scientific  and  in  barbaric 
thought,  216. 

Astarte,  25,  204. 

Astyages,  114. 

Athene,  20 ;  compared  by  Mr.  Glad- 
stone to  the  Logos,  203. 
Auerbach's  cellar,  124. 
Autolykos,  71. 
Aymar,  Jacques,  38,  40. 
Azidahaka,  114. 

B. 

Baba  Abdallah,  43. 
Babel,  72. 
Baga,  104. 

Bagaios,  epithet  of  Zeus,  104. 
Balder,  25. 


244 


INDEX. 


Banier,  Alib^,  15. 

Barbaric  and  Aryan  myths,  149. 

Barbarossa,  26,  201. 

Baring-Gould,  7, 17,  26,  29,  40,  43,  51, 

80,  seq. 
Bazra,  71. 
Belisarius,  15. 
Bellerophon,  19,  205. 
Benaiah  tlie  son  of  Jelioiada,  43. 
Berserkir  madness,  79,  89. 
Beth-Gellert,  7. 
Bhaga,  104. 

Bishop  Hatto,  34,  72,  227. 
Blue-beard,  60. 
Boabdil,  26. 
Bog,  Bogie,  104. 

Boots,  9 ;  his  eating-match  with  the 

Troll,  131. 
Brahman  and  goat,  12. 
Breal,  Michel,  116. 
Bridge  of  souls,  48. 
Bridge  of  the  dead,  151. 
Brisaya,  20,  196. 
Briseis,  20,  196. 
Brunehault,  201. 
Brynhild,  132. 

Bug-a-boo  and  Bugbear,  104. 
Byrsa,  71. 

C. 

Cacus,  117,  121. 
Csecius,  117,  121. 

Cannibalism,  abnormal :  tailor  of 
Chalons,  81  ;  beggar  of  Polomyia, 
82 ;  Jean  Grenier,  83 ;  Jacques 
Roulet,  84. 

Cannibals  (in  Zulu  folk-lore)  and 
Trolls,  165. 

Cardinal  points,  160. 

Carib  lightning-myth,  169. 

Carvara,  20,  124. 

Cassim  Baba,  43.  . 

Cat-woman,  91. 

Catalepsy,  78,  222. 

Catequil  the  thunder-god,  65. 

Cattle  of  Helios,  116,  119. 

Celestinus  and  the  Miller's  Horse,  125. 

Chalons,  tailor  of,  81. 

Changelings,  86. 


Charis  and  Charites,  190. 
Chark,  62. 

Charlemagne,  26,  199,  seq, 

Charon's  ferry-boat,  49 ;  obelus  in 

funeral  rites,  234. 
Cnateau  Vert,  72. 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  his  remark  about 
the  capriciousness  of  the  hvmian 
mind,  218. 

Chimaira,  114. 

Clerk  and  Image,  59. 

Cloud-maidens,  96. 

Clouds  as  cows,  19,  49;  as  birds,  j60  ; 

as  mountains  or  rocks,  54. 
Cows  as  psychopomps,  49. 
Cox,  G.  W.,  9,  14,  89,  193,  107,  211. 
Creation  of  man,  65. 
Cuslma,  118. 

Cyrus,  legend  of  his  infancy,  114 
D. 

Dagon,  19,  24. 

Dahana,  113. 

Dancers  of  Kolbeck,  27. 

Danish  legend  of  Tell,  .3. 

Daphne,  113. 

Daras,  71. 

Dasyu,  113. 

Davy's  locker,  124. 

Dawn  as  detector  of  crimes,  67,  210. 

Day  swallowed  by  Night,  77. 

Death  misinterpreted  by  savages,  75. 

Demoniacal  possession,  237. 

Deva,  107. 

Devil  and  walnut,  36  ;  etymology'  of, 
106  ;  in  mediaeval  mythology,  123- 
129 ;  a  profound  scholar  according 
to  Scotch  divines,  124  ;  blinded  like 
Polyphemos,  125 ;  his  gullibility, 
125,  seq. 

Dewel,  Gypsy  name  for  God,  105. 
Dido  and  the  ox-hides,  71 ;  abandoned 

by  Aineias,  111. 
Dietrich,  201. 
Diocletian's  ostrich,  44. 
Diomedes,  193. 
Dionysos,  124, 
Divining-rod,  37,  55,  64. 
Dog  howling  xmder  the  window,  85,  76L 


INDEX. 


Dogs,  how  far  capable  of  fetichistic 

notions,  221. 
Don  Carlos,  22. 
Dorians  in  Peloponnesos,  180. 
Dousterswivel,  37. 

Dreams,  primitive  philosophy  of,  219. 
Drowning  man  ought  not  to  be  res- 
»•     cued,  215. 
Durandal,  24. 

Dyaus,  or  Dyaus-pitar,  20,  50,  52, 107, 
108. 

E. 

East  of  the  sud  and  west  of  the  moon, 
98. 

Echidna,  58,  114. 

Echoes  fetichistically  explained,  224. 

Ecstasy,  222. 

Eden-myth,  122. 

Efreets,  123. 

Egeria,  30. 

Egil,  5,  24. 

Eleanor,  wife  of  Edward  I.,  22. 
Eleven  thousand  virgins,  28. 
Elixir  of  life,  63. 

Elizabeth,  Hungarian  countess,  80. 
Elizabeth,  wifex)f  Philip  11. ,  22. 
Elves,  96. 

Embodiment,  theory  of,  226. 
Endymion,  25,  161. 
England,the  land  of  ghosts,  28. 
Eos,  198. 
Epimenides,  26. 
Epimetheus,  64. 
Erceldoune,  Thomas  of,  30. 
Erinys,  57,  114,  123,  210. 
Erlking,  31,  seq. 

Erotic  virtues  of  lightning-plants,  65. 
Es-Sirat,  48. 

Esquimaux  moon-myth,  162. 
Etymological  myths,  70. 
Etzel,  201. 
Euhemeros,  15. 
Eumenides,  223. 

Euphemisms  for  dreaded  beings,  223. 

Eurykleia,  25. 

Eurystheus,  112,  169. 

Evil,  Jewish  conception  of,  122. 

Excalibur,  24. 


F. 

Fafnir,  132. 

Fairies  degraded  by  Christianity,  129. 
Faithful  John,  9,  142. 
Farid-Uddin  Attar,  5. 
Fasting,  origin  of   the  practice  in 

savage  philosophy,  237. 
Faust,  black  dog  which  appeared  in 

his  study,  124. 
Feather-dresses,  98. 
Fena  and  Phoinix,  71. 
Fenrir,  77. 
Fern-seed,  44. 
Fetches,  228. 

Figuier,  Louis,  his  fancies  concerning 

metempsychosis,  231. 
Fiji  theory  of  souls,  18  ;  of  the  second 

death,  230. 
Fingal,  71. 

Fish,  in  the  tale  of  Sindbad,  172. 

Fisherman  and  Efreet,  36. 

Fox  scientijique,  39. 

Folliculus,  7. 

Forget-me-not,  42. 

Forty  Thieves,  42. 

Four  a  sacred  number,  160. 

Freeman,  E,  A.,  his  view  of  the  Trojan 

War,  199,  seq. 
Freischiitz  and  Devil,  127. 
Frere's  "Old  Deccan  Days,"  10. 
Freudenberger,  Uriel,  3. 
Frodi  and  his  quern,  66. 
Funeral  sacrifices  illustrating  theory 

of  object-souls,  283. 
Furies,  57,  123. 

a 

Gaia,  198. 
Gambrinus,  128. 
Gandharvas,  95. 
Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  112. 
Gellert,  6. 
Gertrude,  34. 
Gessler,  2. 

Gesta  Romanorum,  7,  44,  94, 125. 
Ghost,  geist,  et>nnology  of,  225. 
Giant  who  had  no  Heart  in  his  Body, 
9,  132,  146,  163,  227. 


246 


INDEX. 


Giants  or  Trolls  as  tmcivilized  prehis- 
toric Europeans,  130. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  his  "Jiiventus 
Mundi,"  174,  seq.  ;  maintains  the 
unity  of  the  Homeric  poems,  181, 
seq.  ;  his  uncritical  views  of  ancient 
history  and  legend,  191  ;  his  ig- 
norance of  comparative  mythology, 
203  ;  unsoundness  of  his  philology, 
206. 

Glaukos,  199. 

Glaukos  and  Polyidos,  60. 

Glistening  Heath,  132. 

Gnat  and  Shepherd,  7. 

God,  etymology  of,  105,  198. 

Golden  Fleece,  133. 

Gorgon's  head,  58. 

Graiai,  50. 

Grateful  beasts  9. 

Great  Bear,  73. 

Grenier  Jean,  83,  90. 

Grote,  G. ,  his  theory  of  the  structure 
of  the  Iliad,  187. 

Guilliman,  liis  work  on  Swiss  antiqui- 
ties, 3. 

Gunadhya,  33. 

Guodan,  105. 

Gyges,  ring  of,  44. 

H. 

Hagen,  24. 

Hair  of  werewolf  growing  inward,  89. 

Hanielin,  piper  of,  31. 

Hamlet,  195. 

Hand  of  glory,  45,  56. 

Hare-lip,  161. 

Harold  Blue-tooth,  4. 

Harold  Hardrada,  5. 

Harpies  and  swan-maidens,  164. 

Hassan  of  El-Basrah,  13. 

Hatto  (Bishop),  34,  72,  227. 

Heartless  Giant,  9, 132,  146, 163,  227. 

Hektor,  189. 

Helena,  20,  121, 196. 

Helios,  oxen  of,  205. 

Hellenes,  180. 

Hemingr,  5,  24. 

Hephaistos  and  Aphrodite,  65,  190 ; 
and  Devil,  124. 


Herakleids,  legend  of,  179, 192. 
Herakles,  15,  24,  112, 169. 
Herakles  and  Geryon,  117. 
Heraldic  emblems,  78. 
Hercules  and  Cacus,  22,  116,  seq. 
Here,  19. 

Hermes,  19,  20,  32,  35,  67,  124,  204. 

Hesperides,  15. 

Hildesheim,  monk  of,  26. 

Hindu  practice  of  self-immolation  for 

purposes  of  revenge,  75. 
Historic  period,  beginning  of,  177. 
Hitopadesa,  12. 
Holda,  35. 
Holy  water,  63. 
Homer,  birthplace  of,  178. 
Homeric  poems,  date  of,  179  ;  Wolfian 

hypothesis,  181 ;  unity  of  style,  185  ; 

not  analogous  to  ballad  poetry,  186  ; 

artistic  structure,  187  ;  unhistorical 

character,  191. 
Homerids,  183. 
Horsel,  28. 
Horselberg,  29. 
Houris,  102. 

Hyperboreans,  garden  of,  114. 
L 

Ida,  114. 

Iliad,  its  structure,  according  to  Grote, 
187. 

Ilsenstein  shepherd,  41. 
Indian  summer,  myth  of,  25. 
Indra,  109,  seq.,  196. 
Indra  Savitar,  56. 

Invisibility  from  use  of  talismans,  44, 
lokaste,  lole,  and  lamos,  113. 
lole,  19,  196. 
loskeha,  156. 
Iris,  204. 

Itshe-likantunjambili,  168. 
Ixion,  19,  50. 

J. 

Jack  and  Jill,  28,  213. 

Jack  and  the  Beanstalk,  23,  33,  78^ 

151,  163,  168. 
Jack  the  Giant-killer,  130. 


INDEX. 


247 


Jacolliot,  "  Bible  in  India,"  205. 
Jewish  notion  of  the  firmament,  48. 
Jinn,  129,  239. 
Jonah  and  the  whale,  77. 
Joseph  of  Arimathaja,  27. 
Joseph  and  Zuleikha,  205. 
Jotuns,  129. 
Jupiter,  20,  108,  117. 

K 

Kaikias,  117. 
Kalypso,  30,  111. 
Kamtchatkan  lightning-myth,  169. 
Karl  the  Great,  200. 
Kasinibaha,  163. 

Kelly,  W.  K.,  on  lightning-myths,  49, 
62,  66. 

Kennedy,  P.,  his  Irish  legends,  86, 101, 
136. 

Kerberos,  20,  124. 

Kinships  among  barbaric  myths,  150. 
Kirke,  111. 

Koroibos,  Oljnnpiad  of,  177. 
Krilof 's  Fables,  7. 

Kuhn's  "  Descent  of  Fire,"  47 ;  his 
theory  of  myth.s  not  incompatible 
with  Max  Miiller's,  119. 

L. 

Labe,  Queen,  111. 

Lad  who  went  to  the  North  Wind,  67. 
Lady  of  Shalott,  49. 
Laios,  112. 

Lancashire  witch  bequeaths  her  soul 

to  a  friend,  226. 
Lapps  as  giants  or  Trolls,  130. 
Latiuni,  72. 
Leichnani,  102. 
Leopard  and  Ram,  131. 
Leto,  198. 

Lightning-birds,  51,  168. 
Lightning-myths  in  barbaric  folk-lore, 

168,  seq. 
Lightning-plants,  40,  44,  55,  61. 
Llangeller,  7. 
Lotos-eaters,  50. 
Loup-garou,  69. 


Luck-flower,  43. 
Lykaon,  69. 
Lykegenes,  71. 
Lykians,  73,  199. 


M. 

Maitland,  blasphemous  remark  of,  104. 

Malay  swan-maidens,  162. 

Malleus  Malejicarum,  5. 

Man  in  the  Moon,  27. 

Manabozho,  153. 

Mandara,  or  Manthara,  63,  171. 

Manes-worsliip,  74,  236. 

Maori  divination  with  Venus  and  moon, 

218. 
Mara,  93,  seq. 
Marechal  de  Retz,  80. 
Master  Thief,  11,  35. 
Maui,  67,  169. 

Max  Miiller,  his  theory  of  mythology 

inadequate,  135,  210. 
Medeia,  111. 
Medusa,  58,  114. 
Meleagros,  19,  24,  112. 
Melusina,  96. 
Meninon,  199. 

Merchant  of  Louvain  and  Devil,  126. 

Meriin,  26. 

Mermaid's  cap,  100. 

Mermaids  foretokening  shipwreck,  103. 

Metempsychosis,  74,  230,  seq. 

Mice  and  rats  as  souls,  33. 

Michabo,  25,  73,  153. 

Milesian,  soubriquet  for  the  Irish,  71. 

Milky  Way,  151. 

Mirror,  when  broken,  portends  a  death 

in  the  family,  217. 
Mishkat-ul-Masabih,  22. 
Mitra,  110. 
Moon  and  hare,  161. 
Moon-myths  among  barbarians,  161. 
Moon-spots,  27. 
Mother  Goose,  27. 
Mouse  Tower,  maut-thurm,  34,  72. 
Muri-ranga-whenua,  169. 
Mykenai,  its  ancient  supremacy  in 

Greece,  200. 
Myth,  definition  of,  21,  seq. 


248 


INDEX. 


N. 

Names,  savages  "anwilling  to  tell  them, 

223. 
Nausikaa,  102. 

Necklace  of  swan-maiden,  99. 
Nectar,  63. 
Nephele,  133,  196. 
Nessos-shirt,  24. 
Nestor,  193. 

Nibelungenlied,  132 ;  as  illustrating 

Iliad,  201. 
Nibelungs,  196. 

Nick,  as  epithet  of  the  Devil,  124. 

Niebuhr's  views  concerning  words  com- 
mon to  Greek  and  Latin,  206. 

Night  -  and  -  morning  -  myth  resembles 
storm  -  myth,  119. 

Night-folk,  129. 

Nightmare,  93. 

Nixy  and  her  glove,  99. 

Not  a  Pin  to  choose  between  them, 
128. 

Numa,  30, 

Nymph,  97. 


o. 

Oberon,  horn  of,  33. 

Odin,  32,  35,  67,  105,  124  ;  his  golden 

ship,  49  ;  his  magic  cudgel,  67, 

217. 

Odin,  lord  of  the  gallows,  56. 
Odysseus,  23,  25,  30,  53,  111. 
Oidipous,  22,  60,  112. 
Oinone,  19,  113. 
Olaf,  Saint,  132. 
Olaf  Tryggvesson,  26. 
Olger  Danske,  26. 
Olympiad  of  Koroibos,  177. 
Omar,  15. 

Oracle-possession,  237. 
Ormuzd,  121. 
Orpheus,  32,  124. 
Orthros,  118. 
Ossa  and  Pelion,  54. 
Other  self,  primitive  doctrine  of,  219, 
seq. 


F. 

Palnatoki,  3,  24. 

Pan,  his  relationship  to  tiie  Devil, 
124. 

Panch  Phul  Ranee,  61. 
Panchatantra,  7. 
Panis,  20,  58,  118,  120,  196. 
Paris,  20,  193  ;  invested  with  solar  at- 
tributes, 195,  198. 
Parizade,  11. 
Patroklos,  189. 
Paul  Pry,  36. 

Pavilion  given  by  the  Peri  Banou  to 

Ahmed,  49. 
Peisistratos,  his  recension  of  Homer, 

181. 

Pelasgian  theory  of  Niebuhr,  206. 
Penelope,  24,  111. 

Permanence  in  language  and  culturej 

conditions  essential  to,  149. 
Peter  Schlemihl,  224. 
Phaethon,  19. 
Philip  11. ,  22. 

Philological  method,  how  far  useful  in 

the  study  of  myths,  144,  seq. 
Phoenician  origin  of  the  Irish,  71. 
Phoibos,  19. 
Phoibos  Lykegenes,  71. 
Phoroneus,  65. 
Phrixos  and  Helle,  133. 
Pictures,  animation  of,  223. 
Piper  of  Hamelin,  31. 
Pitris,  76,  237. 

Pliny's  account  of  springwort,  44, 
Polomyia,  cannibal  beggar  of,  82. 
Polynesian  sun-myth,  170. 
Polyphemos,  his  one  eye,  50,  53 ;  his 

blinding,  125. 
Poseidon,  204. 
Pramantha,  64. 

Primeval  philosophy,  16,  18,  21,  47, 
216. 

Princesses  carried  off  by  Trolls  axid 

Efreets,  132. 
Prometheus,  64. 
Puncher,  5. 

Punchkin,  10,  132,  146. 
Putraka,  13. 


INDEX. 


249 


Quetzalcoatl,  157. 


R. 


Rain-water,  mythical  conception  of, 
63. 

Rainbow,  151,  204. 

Rakshasa,  77. 

Rama  and  Luxman,  9,  142. 

Rattlesnakes  afraid  of  ash-trees,  61. 

Red  James,  100. 

Red  Riding  Hood,  77. 

Renan,  E.,  his  suggestion  that  an  ex- 
ploration of  the  Hindu  Kush  might 
throw  liglit  on  the  origin  of  lan- 
guage, 175. 

Retz,  Marechal  de,  80. 

Rhampsinitos,  14. 

Rickard  the  Rake,  86. 

Riksha,  73. 

Rip  van  Winkle,  26. 

Robin  red-breast,  71 ;  wickedness  of 
killing  robins,  51,  214. 

Roc's  egg,  50. 

Romulus  as  guardian  of  children,  237. 
Roulet,  Jacques,  84,  90. 
Rousseau,  J.  J.,  his  method  of  inquir- 
ing into  the  safety  of  his  soul,  218. 


Sacrifices,  233. 
Saktideva,  77. 

Samu  and  his  brethren,  230. 
Sancus,  117. 

Sanskrit  names  of  Greek  deities,  20. 

Sarama,  20,  119,  seg.,  196. 

Sarameias,  20,  204. 

Saranyu,  57,  210. 

Sarpedon,  193, 199. 

Sassafras,  43. 

Satan,  122. 

Saxo  Grammaticus,  3. 
Scaletta,  71. 

Scarlet  fever,  in  Persian  folk-lore,  239. 
Schamir,  43,  51. 

Scribe,  his  remark  about  the  possible 

a* 


number  of  drOTaatic  situationfi,  IJiJ, 
133. 

Sculloge  of  Muskerry,  136-140. 
Sea  of  Streams  of  Story,  13. 
Seal-women,  100. 
Sebastian  of  Portugal,  26. 
Selene,  198  ;  and  Endymion,  161. 
Serpent  in  Eden,  122. 
Serpent's  venom  neutralized  by  ash- 
tree,  61. 
Sesame,  42,  168. 
Seven  Sleepers,  26. 
Seyf-el-Mulook,  10. 
Shotover,  72. 

Siberian  swau-maideiB,  168. 

Siegfried,  24. 

Sieve  of  the  Daughters  of  Danaos,  48w 

"  Signatures,"  doctrine  of,  55. 
Sigurd,  24,  132. 
Simoom,  239. 

Sindbad,  his  great  fish,  172. 
Sioux,  lightning-myth,  62. 
Sir  Elidoc,  61. 
Sir  Guyon,  59. 
Sirens,  32. 

Sisyphos  and  his  stone,  50. 
Skin-changers,  89. 
Skithblathnir,  49. 
Sky  descending  at  horizon,  48. 
Sky-sea,  49. 

Skye-terrier  and  ball,  220. 

Slamming  door,  229. 

Sleeping  Beauty,  25. 

Snake  leaves,  60. 

Snake  of  darkness,  114. 

Solomon,  43. 

Soma,  63. 

Somadeva,  13,  77. 

Song  of  sixpence,  212. 

Soul,  quitting  body  during  lifetime, 
78  ;  as  shadow,  224  ;  as  breath,  225, 
seq. ;  resemblance  to  body,  228,  aeq.  ; 
killed  over  again,  280 ;  souls  of 
"beasts,  280  ;  of  plants,  2S1 ;  of  in- 
animate objects,  232. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  on  totemism,  74; 
on  the  doctrine  of  ghosts,  222. 

Spento-mainyas,  121. 

Sphinx,  22,  60,  114. 

Spirits,  doctrioe  of,  2^,  Mg. 


250 


INDEX. 


St.  George  and  the  Dragon,  23. 
St.  J ohn's  sleep  at  Epliesus,  26. 
Stars  as  missiles  for  stoning  the  Devil, 

22  ;  as  angels'  eyes,  76  ;  as  pitris, 

76. 

Storm-myth,  resemblance  to  dawn- 
myth,  119. 

Story-roots,  115. 

Succubus,  monkish  tale  of,  94. 

Sun  as  prototype  of  Don  Juan,  111. 

Sun-catcher-myths,  112,  169. 

Sun-myths,  23  ;  why  they  are  so  nu- 
merous, 134. 

Sun-worship,  108. 

Sunset-clouds  representing  hell,  48. 

Suttee,  not  sustained  by  Vedic  author- 
ity, 233 ;  remarkable  case  of,  in 
England,  234. 

Swan-maiden  as  psychopomp,  102. 

Swearing,  Puritan  horror  of,  224. 

Symplegades,  54. 

T. 

Tannhauser,  29. 
Tantalos,  73. 
Tawiskara,  156. 

Tell,  William,  1-6,  15,  24,  239,  241. 
Te  pi  and  Ukuhlonipa,  or  tabuing  of 

chief's  name,  223. 
Themis,  206. 
Thor,  19,  65,  124. 
Three  Princesses  of  Whiteland,  12. 
Three  Tells  of  Rtitli,  26. 
Tithonos,  27. 
Tom  of  Coventry,  36. 
Tom  ITiumb,  77. 
Tortoise  supporting  world,  171. 
Totemism,  74. 
Trance,  78. 
Trolls,  129,  seq. 

Trojan  War,  20  ;  elements  of  the  myth 
found  in  the  Vedas,  20,  120,  194 ; 
how  far  a  sun-myth,  195  ;  how  far  a 
genuine  tradition,  199,  seq. 

Tuesday,  etymology  of,  108. 

U. 

Undine,  98. 

Unity  of  human  culture,  149.  [ 


Unkulunkulu,  236. 
Ursula,  28. 

Urvasi  and  Pixruravas,  S5. 
Usilosimapundu,  172. 
Utahagi,  163. 
Uthlakanyana,  166. 

V. 

Valkyries,  19,  102. 

Valley  of  diamonds,  50. 

Van  Diemen's  Land,  the  home  of 

ghosts,  28. 
Varuna,  50,  110. 
Vasilissa  the  Beautiful,  77. 
Venus,  25. 
Venusberg,  29. 
Viracocha,  156. 
Vittikab,  33,  124. 
Vivas  vat,  110. 
Vivien,  26. 
Volsunga  Saga,  132. 
Vritra,  114,  118,  120. 
Vulcan,  124, 

W. 

Wainamoinen,  33. 
Wall  and  cook,  7. 
Wandering  Jew,  27,  114. 
Waterspout,  239. 

Waxen  image,  necromancy  with,  217. 

Wayland  Smith,  5,  124. 

Werewolf,  etymology  of,  69  ;  hallu- 
cination, 85  ;  summary  of  the  super- 
stition, 88 ;  enchantment  variously 
cured,  90,  92  ;  in  South  Africa,  164. 

Werewolves  and  witchcraft,  79,  91  ;  in 
Aryan  and  barbaric  folk-lore,  con- 
trasted, 165. 

White  bear  as  bridegroom,  98. 

Why  the  sea  is  salt,  66. 

Wild  Huntsman,  27,  33,  76. 

William  of  Cloudeslee,  5,  24. 

Wind-and-Weather,  132. 

Windows  opened  to  let  souls  pass  out, 
76,  229.  . 

Winterthiir,  John  of,  2. 

Wishbone,  55. 


Wishrod,  66. 

Wolf  of  darkness,  77. 

Wolf  girdle,  90. 

Wolfskin,  89. 

Wolfian  hypothesis,  18L 

World-tortoise,  171. 

Wraiths,  228. 


Y. 

Yama,  76. 

Yarrow  and  rue,  100. 


INDEX. 

Yellow  hair  of  solar  heroes,  202. 

Yggdrasil,  65. 

Youth  of  the  World,  175. 


Z. 

Zendavesta,  121. 

Zeus,  20  ;  etymology  of,  107. 

Zeus  Lykaios,  69. 

Zio,  108. 

Zohak,  114. 

Zulu  folk-lore,  165-169. 


THE  END. 


IMPORTANT  BOOKS 

BT 

JOHN  FISKE. 


OUTLINES  OF  COSMIC  PHILOSOPHY, 

Based  on  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  With  Criticisms  on  the  Positiye 
Philosophy.   In  two  volumes,  8vo,  gilt  top,  $6.00. 

You  must  allow  me  to  thank  you  for  the  very  great  interest  with  which  I  have 
at  last  slowly  read  the  whole  of  your  work.  ...  I  never  in  my  life  read  so  lucid 
an  expositor  (and  therefore  thinker)  as  you  are ;  and  I  think  that  I  understand 
nearly  the  whole,  though  perhaps  less  clearly  about  cosmic  theism  and  causation 
than  other  parts.  It  is  hopeless  to  attempt  out  of  so  much  to  specify  what  has  in- 
terested  me  most,  and  probably  you  would  not  care  to  hear.  It  pleased  me  to  find 
that  here  and  there  I  had  arrived,  from  my  own  crude  thoughts,  at  some  of  the 
same  conclusions  with  you,  though  I  could  seldom  or  never  have  given  my  reasons 
for  such  conclusions.  —  Charles  Darwin. 

This  work  of  Mr.  Fiske's  may  not  be  unfairly  designated  the  most  important 
contribution  yet  made  by  America  to  philosophical  literature.  .  .  .  His  theory  of 
the  influence  of  prolonged  infancy  upon  social  development  (Part  II.,  chap,  zxii.) 
entitles  Mr.  Fiske's  work  to  be  considered  a  distinctly  important  contribution  to 
the  theory  of  the  origin  of  species,  and  of  the  origin  of  man  in  particular.  — 
Academy  (London). 

His  most  important  suggestion,  that  of  the  influence  of  the  long  period  of  feeble 
adolescence  upon  man's  social  development,  is,  we  think,  a  permanent  contriba* 
tion  to  the  development  theory.  —  Nation  (New  York). 

lie  recognizes  Mr.  Spencer  as  his  teacher  and  guide  ;  but  he  has  moulded  the 
doctrines  of  his  ihaster  into  a  popular  form,  surrounded  them  with  fresh  and  vivid 
illustrations,  pointed  out  their  bearing  upon  great  practical  questions  of  the  day, 
and  amply  supplied  the  reader  with  materials  for  forming  an  intelligent  judgment 
with  respect  to  their  merits.  Mr.  Fiske  is  himself  a  thinker  of  rare  acuteness  and 
depth  ;  his  affluent  store  of  knowledge  is  exhibited  on  every  page ;  and  his  mas- 
tery of  expression  is  equal  to  his  subtlety  of  speculation.  —  Georqe  Riplst,  in 
Tribune  (New  York). 

Mr.  Fiske's  work  ...  is  the  first  important  contribution  made  by  America  to 
the  evolution  philosophy,  .  .  .  and  is  well  worth  the  study  of  all  who  wish  to  see 
at  once  the  entire  scope  and  purport  of  the  scientific  dogmatism  of  the  day.  —  Sat' 
iBTday  Review  (London). 


DARWINISM  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS. 

New  Edition,  enlarged.    12mo,  gilt  top,  $2.00. 

Contents  :  Darwinism  Verified ;  Mr.  Mivart  on  Darwinism ;  Dr. 
JBateman  on  Darwinism ;  Dr.  Biichner  on  Darwinism  ;  A  Crumb  for 
the  "  Modern  Symposium  ; "  Chauncey  Wright ;  What  is  Inspira- 
tion? Modem  Witchcraft ;  Comte's  Positive  Philosophy ;  Mr.  Buckle's 
Fallacies  ;  Postscript  on  Mr.  Buckle ;  The  Races  of  the  Danube ;  Lib- 
eral Education ;  University  Reform ;  A  Librarian's  Work. 


'  If  ever  there  was  a  spirit  thoroughly  invigorated  by  the  "  joy  of  right  under- 
standing" it  is  that  of  the  author  of  these  pieces.  Even  the  reader  catches  some- 
thing of  his  intellectual  buoyancy,  and  is  thus  carried  almost  lightly  through  dis- 
cussions which  would  be  hard  and  dry  in  the  hands  of  a  less  animated  writer. 
.  .  .  No  less  confident  and  serene  than  his  acceptance  of  the  utmost  logical  results 
of  recent  scientific  discovery  is  Mr.  i'iske's  assurance  that  the  foundations  of  spir- 
itual truths,  so  called,  cannot  possibly  be  shaken  thereby.  .  .  .  The  article  oa 
Mr.  Buckle's  Fallacies  has  one  aspect  more  remarkable  than  all  the  rest.  It  was 
written  and  published  when  the  "  History  of  Civilization  "  was  new,  —  that  is  to 
say,  when  the  writer  was  nineteen  years  of  age;  and  the  years  —  almost  nineteen 
more  —  which  h;ivo  elap.sed  since  then  have  rather  confirmed  than  detracted  from 
its  value  as  a  piece  of  criticism.  The  judgment  of  posterity  on  the  most  ambitious 
book  of  its  generation,  and  one  of  the  most  bewildering,  was/  actually  anticipated 
by  a  stripling,  and  its  final  rank  assigned  with  singular  fairness  and  precision. 
Scarcely  even  in  the  style  is  there  a  trace  of  immaturity.  — j4f/a;ifjc  Monthly. 

The  article  on  the  Races  of  the  Danube  shows  that  Mr.  Fiske  has  a  special  talent 
for  history.  —  Nation  (New  York). 

MYTHS  AND  MYTH-MAKERS: 
Old  Tales  and  Superstitions  interpreted  by  Comparative  Mythology. 
12  mo,  gilt  top,  $2.00. 

Contents  :  The  Origins  of  Folk-Lore ;  The  Descent  of  Fire ; 
Werewolves  and  Swan-Maidens ;  Light  and  Darkness ;  Myths  of  the 
Barbaric  World  ;  Juventus  Mundi ;  The  Primeval  Ghost- World. 

He  has,  as  wc  must  admit,  one  qualification  for  attaining  his  object,  in  being 
completely  master  of  his  subject,  and  in  knowing  also  how  to  treat  it  in  an  attrac- 
tive manner.  —  Feux  Liebrecht,  in  Academy  (London). 

Its  weight  of  sense  and  its  lucidity  will  extend  Mr.  Fiske's  reputation  as  one  ol 
the  clearest-minded,  most  conscientiously  laborious  and  well-trained  students  in 
this  country.  —  Nation  (New  York). 

Mr.  Fiske  has  given  us  a  book  which  is  at  once  sensible  and  attractive,  on  a  sub- 
ject about  which  much  is  written  that  is  crotchety  or  tedious.  —  W.  R.  S.  Ralston, 
in  Athenaum  (London). 

A  perusal  of  this  thorough  work  cannot  be  too  strongly  recommended  to  all  who 
are  interested  in  comparative  mythology.  —  Revue  Critique  (Paris). 


THE  UNSEEN  WORLD,  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS. 

12mo,  gilt  top,  $2.00. 

Contents  :  The  Unseen  World  ;  The  To-morrow  of  Death ;  The 
Jesus  of  History ;  The  Christ  of  Dogma ;  A  Word  about  Miracles ; 
Draper  on  Science  and  Religion  ;  Nathan  the  Wise ;  Historical  Diffi- 
culties; The  Famine  of  1770  in  Bengal;  Spain  and  the  Netherlands ; 
Longfellow's  Dante ;  Paine's  St.  Peter ;  A  Philosophy  of  Art ;  Athe- 
nian and  American  Life. 

To  each  study  the  writer  seems  to  have  brought,  besides  an  excellent  quality  of 
discriminating  judgment,  full  and  fresh  special  knowledge,  that  enables  him  to 
supply  much  information  on  the  subject,  whatever  it  may  be,  that  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  volume  he  is  noticing.  To  the  knowledge,  analytical  power,  and  fac- 
ulty of  clear  statement,  that  appear  in  all  the.se  papers,  Mr.  Fiske  adds  a  just  inde- 
pendence  of  thought  that  conciliates  respectful  consideration  of  his  views,  even 
when  they  are  most  at  variance  with  the  commonly  accepted  ones.  —  Boston  Ad- 
vertiser. 


The  Tigor,  the  earnestness,  the  honesty,  and  the  freedom  from  cant  and  snbtletj 

in  his  writing  are  exceedingly  refreshing.  He  is  a  scholar,  a  critic,  and  a  thinkei 
of  the  first  order.  —  Christian  Register. 

The  book  has  a  unity  and  charm  in  the  clearness  of  the  thought  and  the  beauty 
of  su«h  a  style  as  was  perhaps  never  before  brought  to  the  illustration  of  the 
topics  with  which  Mr.  Fiske  habitually  deals.  There  is  something  better  still  in 
the  admirable  spirit  of  his  \%Titing ;  it  is  of  all  writing  of  its  sort,  probably,  the 
most  humane.  ...  He  has  already  achieved  a  place  as  wholly  his  own  as  it  ia  em- 
inent.— Atlantic  Monthly. 

EXCURSIONS  OF  AN  EVOLUTIONIST. 

12mo,  gilt  top,  $2.00. 

Contents  :  Europe  before  the  Arrival  of  Man ;  The  Arrival  oi 
Man  in  Europe ;  Our  Aryan  Forefathers  ;  What  we  learn  from  Old 
Aryan  Words ;  Was  there  a  Primeval  Mother-Tongue  1  Sociology 
and  Hero- Worship ;  Heroes  of  Industry ;  The  Causes  of  Persecution  ; 
The  Origins  of  Protestantism ;  The  True  Lesson  of  Protestantism  ; 
Evolution  and  Religion  ;  The  Meaning  of  Infancy ;  A  Universe  of 
Mind-Stuff ;  In  Memoriara :  Charles  Darwin. 

Among  our  thoughtful  essayists  there  are  none  more  brilliant  than  Mr.  John 
Fiske.  His  pure  style  suits  his  clear  thought.  He  does  not  write  unless  he  has 
something  to  say  *,  and  when  he  does  write  he  shows  not  only  that  he  has  thor- 
oughly acquainted  himself  with  the  subject,  but  that  he  has  to  a  rare  degree  the 
art  of  so  massing  his  matter  as  to  bring  out  the  true  value  of  the  leading  points  in 
artistic  relief.  It  is  this  perspective  which  makes  his  work  such  agreeable  reading 
even  on  abtruse  subjects,  and  has  enabled  him  to  play  the  same  part  in  populariz- 
ing  Spencer  in  this  country  that  Littr6  performed  for  Comte  in  France,  and  Dumont 
for  Bentham  in  England.  The  same  qualities  appear  to  good  advantage  in  hij 
new  volume,  which  contains  his  later  essays  on  his  favorite  subject  of  evolution. 
.  .  .  They  are  well  worth  reperusal.  —  Tlie  Nation  (New  York). 

These  essays  are  all  full  of  thought  and  worthy  of  preservation,  while  several  of 
them  are  entitled  to  rank  among  the  very  best  essays  of  American  writers.  For 
depth  of  thought,  scholarship,  literary  taste,  critical  ability,  and  the  power  of 
clear  and  vigorous  exposition  cojnbined,  Mr.  Fiske  has  no  equal  in  this  country 
and  but  few  equals  among  European  writers.  —  Index  (Boston). 

THE  DESTINY  OF  MAN. 

Viewed  in  the  Light  of  his  Origin.    16mo,  gilt  top,  $1.00. 

Contents  :  Man's  Place  in  Nature  as  affected  by  the  Copemican 
Theory ;  As  affected  by  Darwinism ;  On  the  Earth  there  will  never 
be  a  Higher  Creature  than  Man  ;  The  Origin  of  Infancy ;  The  Dawn- 
ing of  Consciousness  ;  Lengthening  of  Infancy  and  Concomitant  In- 
crease of  Brain  Surface ;  Change  in  the  Direction  of  the  Working  of 
Natural  Selection;  Growing  Predominance  of  the  Psychical  Life; 
The  Origins  of  Society  and  Morality  ;  Improveableness  of  Man ;  Uni. 
versal  Warfare  of  Primeval  Men ;  First  checked  by  the  Beginnings 
of  Industrial  Civilization ;  Methods  of  Political  Development  and 
Elimination  of  Warfare ;  End  of  the  Working  of  Natural  Selection 
upon  Man;  Throwing  off  the  Brnte-Inheritance ;  The  Message  of 
Chiistianitj ;  The  Question  as  to  a  Future  Life. 


Mr.  Fiske  has  long  held  rank  as  one  of  the  most  profound  and  exact  of  Ameri* 

can  thinkers,  and  his  little  monograph  will  serve  to  extend  that  deserved  fame 
among  a  class  of  readers  who  are  not  ordinarily  interested  in  the  literature  of  sci- 
ence. Mr.  Fiske  s  book  is,  in  a  word,  a  plea  for  faith  in  the  immortality  of  man, 
based  on  the  doctrine  of  evolution. — Boston  Traveller. 

Mr.  Fiske  has  given  us  in  his  "  Destiny  of  Man  "  a  most  attractive  condenfiation 
of  his  views  as  expressed  in  his  various  other  works.  One  is  charmed  by  the  di- 
rectness and  clearness  of  his  style,  his  simple  and  pure  English,  and  his  evident 
knowledge  of  his  subject.  ...  Of  one  thing  we  may  be  sure,  that  none  are  lead- 
ing us  more  surely  or  rapidly  to  the  full  truth  than  men  like  the  author  of  this 
little  book,  who  reverently  study  the  works  of  God  for  the  lessons  wMch  he  would 
teach  his  children.  —  Christian  Union  (New  York). 

It  is  a  remarkable  contribution  to  the  literature  of  religious  thought.  .  .  .  Tt 
will  prove  that  evolution  is  at  least  not  irreverent.  ...  It  is  packed  full  of  learn- 
ing and  suggestion,  in  a  style  at  once  simple  and  beautiful,  and  is  worth  a  dozen 
volumes  of  ordinary  sermons.  —  Philadelphia  Press. 


THE  IDEA  OF  GOD  AS  AFFECTED  BY  MODERN 
KNOWLEDGE. 

16mo,  gilt  top,  $1.00. 

CoNTBWTs:  DiflScalty  of  expressing  the  Idea  of  God  so  that  it  can 
be  readily  understood ;  The  Rapid  Growth  of  Modern  Knowledge; 
Sources  of  the  Theistic  Idea ;  Development  of  Monotheism ;  The  Idea 
of  God  as  immanent  in  the  World ;  The  Idea  of  God  as  remote  from 
the  World ;  Conflict  between  the  Two  Ideas,  commonly  misunder- 
stood as  a  Conflict  between  Religion  and  Science ;  Anthropomorphid 
Conceptions  of  God;  The  Argument  from  Design;  Simile  of  tha 
Watch  replaced  by  Simile  of  the  Flower ;  The  Craving  for  a  Final 
Cause ;  Symbolic  Conceptions  ;  The  Eternal  Source  of  Fheuomena; 
The  Power  that  makes  for  Righteousness ;  Notes. 


HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO.,  Publishers, 
Boston  and  New  Yobk* 


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